Poetic License

by Copper Beech

It wasn't that I don't like Shakespeare. I do. Holmes and I can trade lines like we were born on the boards. It's just that the assignment from my literature tutor was so unwelcome. He didn't think I had a sufficient enough appreciation for poetry. Or at least poets. To remedy that, he asked me to write a sonnet.

Now it's one thing to read about love in iambic lines, but it's quite another to write about it without tripping over one's feet. I felt as if my shoelaces were tied together. But I did try.

I read as many Shakespearian sonnets as I could stand and moved on to Wordsworth, Keats, and Browning, all in an effort to learn the form, I said. It was more an effort to postpone the inevitable.

I gave myself encouragement. "It's not that hard, Russell," I said. "Just fourteen lines. Regular pattern. Quite mathematical, actually. And you don't have to write it for or about someone. A sonnet is often about love. What do you love?" The answer came my home. Then and there, I decided to write about Sussex.

With resolve and pen in hand, I took up the task that would take much paper, ink, and patience. My first attempt went: Sussex filled with the summer's green. That's nice I thought. Then I counted. Not long enough by a foot. How about Sussex is filled with the summer's green? Half a foot short. Sussex downs are filled with the summer's green. No, that doesn't make sense. I wadded up the paper and threw it in the general direction of the waste bin.

This was going to take longer than I thought. I would have to learn to twist words into awkward order so lines could rhyme. I gave up on the meter. Maybe Holmes could hear those subtle rhythms, but then he played the violin. My musical expertise was limited to the penny whistle. Not an instrument to inspire one's confidence.

I persisted. Rhyming words were fairly flying off the page and crashing to the floor. I kept forgetting that I didn't need couplets, but alternately rhyming lines. Before the effort broke me, I took a break. I would stop my labors just long enough for tea. I wanted something stronger, but I had none. I would have borrowed some spirits from my neighbor, but the thought of brandy that tasted of petrol was as unappealing as explaining why I needed it. So, tea it was.

After two cups of tea were consumed, I went back to work. Several false starts later, I came up with my first line: The downs run fair and green from field to sea. I put the pen down and thought about the downs. Thought of red and blue spotted bees, of running to keep up with Holmes, of finding a home with him. I sighed and picked up the pen to write a second line: Hills gently repeat to the end of land.

Outside my window I heard laughter. I thought of the first time I heard Holmes' brilliant laugh. I got up and closed the window and went back to work. At this rate, the term would be over and I would still be sitting here. Determined, I found rhymes for my first two lines and set about finding words to precede them.

Lines five, six, and eight proved no problem, but line seven was turning sticky. I rubbed my eyes and kept them closed, hoping inspiration would strike me. It didn't, but sleep did. I dreamed of the downs in vivid images, but alas no words. And when I awoke, I took myself off to bed.

Morning brought me back to my task and the words that were so elusive yesterday, landed as lightly as a bee returning to the hive. As quickly as I could write, I put the words on paper. When I finished them, I looked at them with careful eye and saw this:

The downs run fair and green from field to sea
Hills gently repeat to the end of land
Waves meet cliff and sky to make their way free
From hold of tiding moon and earth-bound sand
At the rocky edge of the cliff I sit
And turning page to page of my book
Think of future's lines ready to be writ
But find them not on first or second look
From the rocky edge of the cliff I turn
And walking with my thoughts fixed on the past
Wonder at events from which I did learn
That neither pain nor joy will always last
And in the coming of the evening's ease
I see the present possibilities

Then I put a title at the top: First and Last. And fervently hoped it would be true.