Sonnet for C.B.
A POEM
How strange to see this landscape in the glass,
The surface — twinges frozen to a sneer —
An ancient planet’s blunt, misshapen mass,
Where tidal sandstorms and volcanoes sear
The well-worn fissures of familiar sins
And feelings now like stunned survivors creep
From silent caverns: half-suggestive grins,
The broken grimaces of too much sleep;
A cinder long ago escaped its star,
Careening weightless through unblinking space,
A fugitive in interstellar war,
Too far for an alien settlement to grace
This darkening image in the startled glass
That rings more hollow than a sounding brass.
© 1986 New Oxford Review. All Rights Reserved.
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Many of Vanauken’s poems are reminiscent of Browning, Donne, the early Charles Williams, and others, in style, tone, and theme.