Sonnet II
Being and nothingness
Let us consider three among the dead:
One—a man whose poetry I’ve read,
Two—a friend who drowned in Alton Bay,
Three—a boy who’s never lived a day.
The first, of course, I never could have known—
His candle, well before I waxed, outblown.
Two, as Art to Life, was bound to me,
Until in artful bounds she took the sea.
The third lives not at all, but is confined
Within a book—and so within my mind.
Blind were I to seize the common thread
And then untwist it for their being dead.
It matters not why they are ever still;
For with them each we all may kythe at will.
One—a man whose poetry I’ve read,
Two—a friend who drowned in Alton Bay,
Three—a boy who’s never lived a day.
The first, of course, I never could have known—
His candle, well before I waxed, outblown.
Two, as Art to Life, was bound to me,
Until in artful bounds she took the sea.
The third lives not at all, but is confined
Within a book—and so within my mind.
Blind were I to seize the common thread
And then untwist it for their being dead.
It matters not why they are ever still;
For with them each we all may kythe at will.
Author’s Note: “Kythe” (also spelled kithe) is an old Scots verb meaning “to make known; to become known; to make visible, manifest, show, or declare.” It was also used by Madeleine L’Engle in the Time Quintet to describe a form of wordless communication stemming from and/or resulting in a deep understanding of another person.
The rhyme scheme identifies this poem as a couplet sonnet, sometimes called a Clare sonnet, after John Clare. This type of sonnet is similar to the Cyhydedd Fer Sonnet, although it differs metrically as well as in the placement of the volta.
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