The real maker of poems will make a sonnet that obeys all the rules, that entices, enthralls, and overwhelms first by the sound of it, before anybody knows what it is “about.” Then, for those who search but don’t care, the meaning comes into focus: the first meaning, then the second, then another. And it will look like a sonnet. But it will take time to make this sonnet. Because it’s a real sonnet. The maker must be patient, searching for each word as a numismatist searches for that one coin to fill each slot until the collection is perfect. Each word will be chosen for its strength and speed, its ring and tenor, its size and shape, its cleanliness or patina, its endurance and its baggage, its sure-footedness and grace, its poise and athleticism, its clarity and obscurity. At last, the last word will be found, examined, fitted snugly in, and voilà, the sonnet.

 

 

 

We curse our pains and wish them gone, when in fact they are necessary to our development and our compliance to the laws and exigencies of our second estate. (I need to stop making little noises when I stand up, sit down, or whatever, and a little kick of pain grabs me. Just keep it to myself.) Pain can absorb and discharge the immoralities of our disobedience, sucking into itself our peccadilloes and ridding us of them, payment for our improprieties. Of course only sometimes, perhaps rarely, is that the reason or benefit of pain. Pain can simply force us into more humility, or drag us up before the tribunal of our own pride, to have us acknowledge our incapacity to do anything about it but to beg God to palliate it, or remove it. But why should He? Isn’t it one of His gifts, in mercy given, to help us on our way? His Son knew pain, more than we all could ever bear—and did He not learn to bear it from His Father—and ours? Come, pain; settle in; I will not resist more than just my normal grunts and groans.