I Wrote a Sonnet!

That’s awesome, because I haven’t been able to write poetry since my marriage began to disintegrate in 1997. I have been waiting, sometimes impatiently, for the ability to return. Sometimes I was afraid it never would. Occasionally a phrase or two would come … but I could never get the fragments to gel into a complete work.

The lesson here is that a poet who smothers her feelings will be unable to communicate through poetry. A poet who hides from truth will not be able to distill truth in the way that poetry demands. And a poet who shuns pain will be unable to feel anything well enough to write about it.

Well, I felt today. I’m cleaning, and decluttering, and paying down debt. There are weeks when it’s hard to make ends meet. There are times when I have to say “no” when I want to say “yes” because I can’t afford “yes.” So the other day, I was putting some papers in the safe and discovered my wedding bands and engagement set. I’d thought they were stolen along with all of my other good jewelry in November 2007. I was wrong.

I knew I didn’t care to keep the bands. They mean nothing to me, and as far as I’m concerned, I wouldn’t want to pass them on to my sons … they are cursed.  The engagement set, I wasn’t so sure about. I’ll never wear it again, but one of the boys might like to give it to his girl … anyway, I never felt at peace about selling the engagement set like I did about the bands.

But when I got to the jewelers to get an estimate of what the bands would bring me, I started to cry. I’d intended just to get a quote, and then get a couple more and choose the best offer. But, standing there watching the kind old man carefully inspecting and evaluating these tiny artifacts of my marriage — artifacts that carried so much feeling and hurt and pain — I realised that I couldn’t face that ordeal again. I just took what he offered. It was more than I had hoped — nearly three-quarters of what we’d paid for them fourteen years ago.

When I got back to the office (I foolishly did this on my lunch break, among other errands like returning a tub of cat litter to the grocery), I sought out my girl-friend who has stood by me for almost ten years, and cried on her shoulder. She’s also been through the painful death of a marriage and having to recover from it. She understood.

And later, as I was trying to concentrate on the reports I was compiling (while trying to see through a right eye clouded by a broken blood vessel), a sonnet hit me. Full force. In the solar plexus. Those of you who are writers understand that I just yanked up a new Word document and got those words on paper, double-quick. And then went back to my reports … a little more emotionally stable.

When I got home, I decided that since I’d been writing about sonnets recently, I’d share it here.

The day I sold my wedding bands, I cried
For all the dreams I lost when I divorced
So tragic that the vows were based on lies
And all commitment died when truth was forced.
The years between decree and sale of rings
You’d think would have erased the stinging pain,
But no! There was no time to ponder weighty things
While tending to life’s pressing, hectic strain.
I think that letting go becomes more real
As artifacts of past times are released.
We often fail to take the time to feel —
Avoiding pain, we grasp at spurious peace —
So when at last divestiture comes due
We gasp and shudder, and we weep anew.

Tags: divorce, honesty, pain, poem, poetry, sonnet, True Stories