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Holy Sonnets 9 Through 13

Holy Sonnets 9 Through 13

Last updated on: January 19, 2024 at 12:12 pm by Clark Elder Morrow

Holy Sonnets 9 Through 13 2024-01-19T12:12:49-08:00 Clark Elder Morrow

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If humanity is the renegade rag-girl in the tale

Of all history, then the prescient Prince has always

Loved her through all ages, as she picked through

Bones and ash and assorted litter, looking for

Gems or even just pennies in the trash. He had

Always known and loved her, from the beginning

Or before, convinced always of how he would

Rescue her, not just giving up his diadem and wealth,

But taking on agony and shame as well. All to

Substitute for and salvage her all-too-lugubrious

Louse-ridden lump-sum of a sorry self. Yes,

This is a familiar saga of romance, with all the

Thumbworn traits of the genre. But all the newer tales

Have trundled afterwards, and have only trod its path.

It is the worn story of every Cinderella

From Psyche to Pygmalion, but formed before

The first heroine ever carried into sweet Eden her

Pre-fetal bouquet of roelike eggs. Long before man

Managed to find himself embowered and emblissed in

Earthbound but pre-harrowed heavenlies. Long before

Grimm or Shaw, the plot had been conceived. And then

Enacted at the ghastly and gruesome expense of

The playwright. Never did artist, writer or fabulist

Suffer so much for an artwork. By writing himself

Into the dramedy, the Priest Incomparable became

The bloodiest victim, vitiated to the point of

Inestimable exaltation. Anguished near-annihilation

Crowned him with nothing less than the Universe.

Yet he does not spend all his timeless time in

A static reign, merely accepting the adulation of

Cheering cherubim, and the four living beasts, and

The incorporated souls of a barely-chastened church.

He pleads for those more swine than sheep, sans surcease,

Without interregnum, interminably interceding for

Those he loves, like a maddened mother moved to

Fierce and infinite loquacity – as if the lives

Of all her children hung on her power of persuasion.

Love propels his wordsmithing, and love unleashes his

Floodtide of titanic rhetoric. Love breaks the dam

Of human diffidence, but he has never lounged

Nor lingered in arguing my cause and your case to

Aggravated Godhood. Such we owe to Advocacy.

XII

And all our evil is aggravated in His sight,

Exacerbated, enflamed, rubbed raw to the point

Where a lesser deity would doubtless erupt in

Exasperation and explosion. Any evil is to Him

What the worst crime and crushing affront is

To us: galling beyond endurance, grievous and

Wounding, as deep as to the womb or the marrow.

The worst offense, the most painful piercing point

Of switchblade or spear, the one rankling insult that

Goes straight to the most sensitive pubic-point of

Your pride – these you find impossible to palliate.

And so does God (He would be less godly if

He suffered them blandly and benignly). No. Scales

Must balance, that the Equable’s mercy may endure.

XIII

The Cosmos King is not impassible, stoic, passionless,

Immune to the call of symphonies and serenades, of

Fondnesses and affections and tendernesses, and

Wholesome longings that wander across the human

Landscape, like cow-warm wonders soft and with

Milk-sweet breath. All the finer and fondest desires

Of the heart are found like foundlings in our breasts,

Though they were born in His. The world of kindness

Found its start in the Heart that harbors a soft

Spot for cossetting; craves a cozy huddle in the crook

Of a favorite’s arm; warms at the thought of pure co-

Sleeping in the vast parental bed, among billowing

Bolsters, counterpanes, quilts, cushions and such.

We have strong loves because His love is stronger.

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Holy Sonnets 4 through 8

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January 30, 2024 Holy Sonnets 14 through 20

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