bleckblog: musings of a community college english teacher

I wrote this for a colleague who is moving to Australia to be with the love of her life. Many of us will miss her. She might be the third person we lose over this summer, with one headed to Gonzaga across town, Connie headed to Australia and a third maybe leaving for a position I won't list, because her interview is this Friday.

Connie's Sonnet

Let yourself go the way too long desired,
So lives merge anew in this mortal world;
Leave a hemisphere travailed and ingrained
For one into which you have yourself hurled.

Here is abandoned but not left for dead,
For all breath continues in your absence;
Now the new comes to life, to a fresh head.
Then and now meld despite walls or a fence.

Winter becomes summer; spring becomes fall.
Down under is the now piquing upside.
Each move slackens the diminishing pall
That recedes with the lamentable tide.

That which doesn’t kill will make us stronger,
Especially to regret no longer.

The only part of the poem I like is the way the concluding couplet works, but since the farewell party was last night, this is where it stands.