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Holy Sonnets I through III

Holy Sonnets I through III

Last updated on: January 3, 2024 at 1:14 pm by Clark Elder Morrow

Holy Sonnets I through III 2024-01-03T13:14:48-08:00 Clark Elder Morrow

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How much terror he must have overcome

To climb the tree where Hell awaited him —

Facing lavaflows of fury both holy and hot.

All the rage of outraged love, hurt to the point

Of delirium and derangement, awaited him.

Every mother’s cry for wild-eyed justice

After a daughter’s defilement, would attack him:

The scapegoat, the defendant, the whipping boy

Who loved the miscreant little master who

Deserved the whip, but willingly took his place.

Everything before him threatened all the fierce

Torquing torment that omniscience could

Conceive. Humiliation was the least of it.

Degradation had been but a peaceful prelude.

The Wrath cannot be eidetically envisioned.

Every possible measure of ire took torrential fire

Against the victim, and was ingeniously designed

To immolate and obliterate that which he

Deliberately doused himself with: your filth

And mine. Imagine your revulsion at slick vermin

Swarming and sliming and lubricating with

Their loathsome spittle provisions in your pantry.

That is very little beside a provoked god’s frenzy

Of repugnance against every sin ever born, ever

Coddled, loved, and caressed, then sent

To the limbs, to be oozed into lubricious life.

We have no idea the anger Infinitude can add

To anger, so that Hell itself seems bliss beside it.

III

To do that which of all things in life you most

Desire, in your vitals, to avoid – to cry like a scared

Schoolchild not to be fastened to the faggots

Of the inquisitorial auto-da-fe – to beg God,

With gusto, not to slam the jagged spikes in

Where pain will be most magnified – this, this

May be the genesis or the gestational stage of

A valor, and a fortitude, forever fathomless.

All hope gone, Resolve stands up straight, adjusts

Its suit of clothes, and says, with newfound firmness,

“Now is the moment of majesty. Now evil achieves

The purposes of purity, and sin blunders in bringing

Gratitude for grace into a hundred million hearts. May

The will of the Winsome One triumph and transform.”

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