An Unsure Path

“Sonnet Concerning Poetic Vision,” was one of my early poems written shortly after I began to take the poetic endeavor seriously. It was among the poems I read at my very first public poetry reading which some friends and I organized at a coffee shop in San Francisco. After that period, I put the poem away and have not read it in any of my public readings since.

I recently revisited that poem. In the years that have ensued, I can say that poetry has continued to be a wondrous guide along an unsure path. I have come to see this early poem as my "ars poetica."

Sonnet Concerning Poetic Vision

(with apologies to John Milton)

When I consider how my light has come

Ere half my days in this vast world and wide,

And that one talent which I'd love to hide

Springs forth unmercifully, I ask some

More restful state be given for my home.

Much inward stress is placed on those denied

The convalescence of the blinder side

Of life. For art and vision in a womb

Create travail one soul cannot abide

Alone. My spirit answers that to see

Gives greater satisfaction than to find

A life devoid of wonderment to guide

The soul along an unsure path. To be

Distressed with sight enlarges soul and mind.

3/81                                                              ~ CK

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