Sampson’s Sonnet
The day
misleads. We’re blessed by losing eyes
Too easily
distracted by the rose
That colors over thorns, insects, and blight,
And feigns
geometries in petals though
True lines and
circles never can be drawn
On warped and
pitted canvases of earth.
The very
structure of the eye proclaims
That sight has
little worth. Jehovah would
Not make such
fragile orbs for vision if
It were a thing
for us to treasure much.
Delilah is more
proof. Unseen she could
Not use her outer
bloom for treachery.
By losing eyes, I
took on better sight
And found more
focus in the dark than light.
Delilah’s
Sonnet
How could
betrayal happen to a man
Who’d made a
wager, murdered when he’d lost,
Who knowingly
pushed massive pillars down
To crush a child that led him to the place,
Who’d used his
trust, dominion over beasts,
To bind their
tails and send them off in flames?
(I still can hear
the awful yelping of
The twice-red
foxes till the fires consumed
Their tiny
throats and tongues.) I had no choice.
He was a
monster. Villainy requires
Containment which
we did—yet let him live,
A courtesy he failed to show himself
A courtesy he failed to show himself
In taking his own
life that we had spared.
Delilah in return should, too, be spared.
