Sonnet For The Painter

 

Sonnet For The Painter

 

A god’s name they bequeathed ‘pon thee,

And sewed endless eyes on thy face;

Windows ordained with this decree:

To my childhood thy stare shall trace;

Harness ink from thy onyx hair,

Brush unto the parchment a scene

Of thy beauty thou canst yet spare,

Rid me of a world so obscene!

And O! How dost thou bear the heft?

Such fire and substance of the soul

All sheathed in thy frailty and deft –

A beacon to ward despair’s toll;

         And though rifts rise in hours finite,

         Across lives, ‘tis but a respite.