SONNET

[Guest guest]

PHOENIX PONDERS ON SMOULDERING ASHES

 

MY SOUL mourns like the wounded Phoenix bird,

Trapped and wrapped in a python's coil of pain,

Gripped by bodily tension, sad brain's in strain.

Can angst be adequately described in words?

Yet insight knows, harsh pain, my Soul's disturbed.

As God's windmill turns, He churns the wheel of bane,

To winnow worthless chaff from golden grain;

Truth from dark ignorance, is strained and stirred.

 

Phoenix rises from her funeral pyre

Immolated in the blaze of sacred flame.

Vain egotism has fled with wild desire;

In awe, she kneels before the Holy Name.

So I learn through grimmest pain and sorrow,

Hope glimmers, for Selfhood's dawn tomorrow.

 

Alan Jacobs