What it is

June 2010: In a desperate attempt to stave off senility, the monkey began writing a poem a day. By summer's end he'd begun to run out of versified political rants and philosophical bloviations. Then he hit on the improbable idea of writing micro fiction in the form of Elizabethan sonnets. Eureka. The birth of the "Sonnets From Other Lives" series. Two hundred plus lives later, he's still at it.

Thursday, September 9, 2010

9/9
Sonnets From Other Lives: Hiro

See that tree? The little alpine fir?
Planted that one back in '52.
Pruned like one I saw on Mt. Rainier.
A history prof from the U.W.
lived here back then, and he hired me--
a part time student on the G.I. Bill
with a piece of German shrapnel in my knee.
Dad did bonsai. Taught me and I still
have his tools. Minidoka broke his heart.
He'd lost the store and me in Italy...
Didn't see much point in Nippon arts.
Thought of him a lot shaping that tree--
 a gnarled mountain fir in Laurelhurst.
It's what a thing looks like when it endures.
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