This is the first of my fourth and final series of fourteen sonnets: love letters. Each of these sonnets is a letter to someone, or something, I love, or have loved. Deeply.
I will not reveal who, or what, each letter is dedicated to.
‘We River’ is an extended metaphor. It begins with theft from A Midsummer Night’s Dream: “The course of true love never did run smooth.” The first line of the sonnet uses this logic to establish the metaphor of love as a river. It then explores the commonalities of these two nouns: one concrete, one abstract.
As always, this sonnet was not the one I imagined I’d write at the outset. Starting a poem is like tipping the pieces out of a jigsaw with no picture on the box.
We River Love runs not smooth, it’s river it’s not lake: Crash-smashing into rocks as if it can Remove the obstacles that make it snake; Brash barriers to water’s forward plan. But rivers have to twist, contort and writhe Rave raucously on beds and over drops; They’re beautiful because they’re wild and lithe Their fervour races on… it never stops. At times our liquid love reaches full flood With pow’r to drag us down amongst the weeds; At others it dries up like rage-spilt blood On battlefields distressed by vicious deeds. But never will our river cease to move No damn drawback could its essence remove.
Fantastic and positively thought provoking!