Sonnets

Context — Dream about the diverse wonder of our little dirt ball.

27.
“I think you’ve mixed up your geography.
You’re thinking of the hats that farmers wear
to plant their rice beside the great Yangtze.
Instead, I’m from a place where morning prayer
is routine, so the bells we hear at school
repeatedly remind me that I miss
the modern beat and warmth of Istanbul.”
While listening to Abu reminisce,
young Stella squirmed at being proven wrong,
she hoped she hadn’t bungled this first chance
by thinking Abu’s heritage Hong Kong.
“Apologies! I’m sorry. Would perchance
forgiveness be in store?” the girl replied,
“I thought you perked when she said ‘worldwide.’”

Context — Cross-cultural understanding + social awkwardness.

26.
“Hello, my friend!” our heroine called when
the bells to end their class began to ring.
“Are you from China? Near Tiananmen?
I hear these days we’ve migrants from Peking.”
Abu was startled thrice. The first word, “friend”
had not been said to him since he arrived,
and now to hear so leisurely intend
relationship struck him as quite contrived.
A second startle struck when question mark
was used in Stella’s sentence said to him,
as once from plane his family disembarked
he hadn’t once been asked his thought or whim.
The final startle was, at core she meant
Abu appeared to come from Orient!

Context — Stella wasn’t the only one who enjoyed the speech.

25.
delighted Stella, grinning ear to ear
as if she’d heard the words she’d waited for,
who scanned the room to find the most sincere
expression matching hers, on boy ignored
in previous encounters. He was new.
He wore a fez above his eyes afire,
known only by his first name, this Abu,
whom after which not one had once inquired.
Abu looked up at Stella as if asked
the moment Stella looked across at him,
their interest thus at once to both unmasked,
and yet the thought of friendship remained dim.
The hint of interest in the world at large,
plus BLING, empowered Stella to take charge.

Context — Teacher Gumi’s speech continues.

24.
in which your family makes its home. Your birth
was likely under roof you now repair.
Go forth! Uncover each of your own worth
discovering the world. Become aware
of who and what your neighbors are, and why
they act one way and you just find it strange.
Our cultures differ, Paris and Shanghai
could never prosper if both rearranged
their streets and people, let alone swapped out
entire populations, one for one.
There is no guiding road or central route,
you’ll never know you’re done, or lost, or won.
I know you’re young, your vigor and your vim
should guide you.” Silence fell. Her passioned hymn

Context — Where does our world stretch to?

23.
“Our world,” she said, “is vast and stretches past
the farms and fields known by you and yours,
we’ve seen on maps that, though we’re unsurpassed
in resources, there’s places like Azores
which, held by Portugal but partly free
are rich in beauty rather than in stone,
and so to show you global potpourri
I’ve asked the library to put on loan
this globe, to us. An aid to educate
the Tanzanian future pioneers
of veld and forest, Asia, Europe, Strait
of Hormuz, inland seas and sands, Algiers,
I care not where you end your journeys, but
implore you venture far away from hut

Context — I was fascinated by globes as a kid.

22.
in posture, eyebrow, spirit, tone and word,
because Miss Gumi never had before
in such a forward way to them inferred
that something good indeed was soon in store.
As guesses slowly quieted and lull
swept through the classroom, none had spoken right,
the boys maintaining box contained a skull,
the girls aligned in hope against that wight.
Instead, revealed with flourish and a smile
Miss Gumi held a ball of deft design,
its intricate lined borders scaled to miles,
its dotted streak displaying day’s date line.
In history the class had never owned
a globe, our world diminutively cloned.

Context — The story resumes.

21.
Geography commenced at ten to twelve,
the four bells rang to start the student race
to class, all knew they had short time to shelve
their books and book it to their classroom place.
“Good morning students,” customarily
announced Miss Gumi, tall before the boys
and girls. They stood up and all wearily
announced, “Good morning, Teacher,” standard noise
in classrooms urban, rural, country-wide,
the greeting drilled afront a sea of desks.
She raised a box aloft, class stunned, she tried
solicit guesses, standing statuesque:
“What do you think arrived to class today?”
Exams? Some textbooks? Eagerness displayed

Context — For those unsatisfied to sit, nature can be a most attractive alternative to school.

20.
The morning fog deterring not a whit,
our Stella marched to school with pup in pack,
her fear the day too short to simply sit,
that boredom soon would creep in and hijack
her honest wish she’d learn a thing worthwhile
for spending hours and days and weeks in class,
so that in wilderness her versatile
and adroit skill would serve her. Rather, mass
and density, historic dates, and facts
all failed to boost her instinct to survive.
“This memorizing,” she said, “just distracts
me from the things that make me feel alive.”
That day two things would happen unforeseen:
she’d meet one friend and start a lifetime dream.

Context — Days can feel colored.

19.
Were Tuesday yellow, Wednesday would be gray,
the color heralded and feared of fog,
which nautically could house a harbor quay
with warmth and safety, markets, bars and grog,
or equally lead captains from landfall
back out to waters deep and pulsing storm
that threaten vessels’ safety. Stand a squall
and folks invent and spread new lore, transform
your reputation from mere amateur
into adventurer, the tested lot
whose weathering stripped off the immature,
who’s earned the title scripted on his yacht.
Respect, however, comes not quick nor free,
so Stella soon would face these trials at sea.

Context — Honey honey honey honey honey makes me think of the warm memories of childhood Winnie the Pooh.

She bounded off through palm and soursop,
saliva massing, thoughts of sweetness soon
expected. She now calmly mused, “Our crop
today exceeds the paltry picayune
we’d get for dinner if we’d shown up late!”
Just then she spotted BLING ahead, with prize
aloft in jaws, its dripping gold flow rate
enough to dilate Stella’s hungry eyes.
A further jaunt to distance from bee guards,
they found themselves atop a precipice,
each stuffing face with honeycomb’s goo shards,
the sugar jolt and sunset bringing bliss.
A yellow day: the honey, stains and sun
were just a taste of their yet-unplanned fun.