I was digging through some old papers last night (one of my monotonous, methodical means of dealing with occasional sleeplessness) and found this. I wrote it during Lent. I have a rather unhealthy addiction to sonnets; when I can think of nothing else to write, I write sonnets. Lots and lots and lots of ugly, awful, clunky, choppy sonnets. (Well, you're supposed to trade a bad habit for a good one...I never heard of sonnets causing cancer, though they might assault the mind of the poor reader. Secondhand fumes and whatnot.)
Ah well. Here it is.
The Trying
The sin of Adam troubles us each spring
when liturgy commands that we recall
desire to "be like gods," which caused the Fall:
an innocence turned to a twisted thing,
a tending toward disaster. Human nature.
A funny nature, spawning murderers
whose progeny forged cities, arts and spears --
creators with the boundaries of creatures.
In towers, stories, wheatfields' broken sod
we make more than what we ourselves now are
stretching our limitations to the breaking --
the tendency of our first parents' making
which now in imperfection wages war
on imperfection: strives to be like God.
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