Cedar Sonnet

Extended sonnet written for a collaboration with artist Sheryl Vine for The Artistree Project and presented at Fieldmoot in 2023.

Lithe fingers sway and brush the cottoned skies.
Proud heir to Leb’non’s cedars, straight and tall,
Untimely felled by forecasted surprise:
A common fate I thought would ne’er befall.

To call it pruning is too kind a word;
Dismembered, piece by piece, I lose myself:
Weep bloody sawdust ’neath the spinning sword,
Then shut away upon a darkened shelf.

I fear I have been left as scrap to rot
My heartwood hopes dry out as seasons go
Now I am purposeless (or so I thought)
Forgetting seeds must fall before they grow

Alas! Imperfect rings and fragments frail!
Ashamed, all vuln’rabilities laid bare.
Yet darkness could not quell the Maker’s tale:
Each ring an Ebenezer to His care

The One who’d pruned me lifted me to light
With patient hands, He layered grace on grace
Adorned, transformed to beauty in His sight
New purpose found in unexpected place

My slivers wait in varied states prepared
Some yet await a balm to soothe old hurt,
While others, finished, far-flung places fared
Well-past the reach of my first patch of dirt!

I do not know yet all that I will be,
but now on days when it’s too dark to see,
I’ll wait in eager curiosity
For His designs to be revealed in me.

A seed of hope to comfort those who mourn:
From ruined rings are sliver’d glories born.