Sonnets

Context — Send in the little guy to get the big guy.

37.
The window through which she’d just one dog tossed
was open wide to welcome evening breeze,
but closed by metal netting, crissed- and crossed
defense against mosquito-borne disease.
Unfortunately for Abu, it failed
to serve its function, as a gaping hole
in no way this dog’s entry did curtail,
and thus a bug could easily just stroll
directly through the window, toward its prey,
while wing-to-wing with thousand closest friends.
And so BLING flew that unimpeded way,
a wingless bug in flight, the girl pretends.
The forest howls from darkness briefly met
a thrilling YIP! as pup turned air cadet.

Context — Off to extract Abu for a nighttime test.

36.
In no time flat they found themselves before
the house and humble home of young Abu.
They snuck away from front to backside door
and sat to quickly plan what they would do.
As Stella whispered plans, she gauged response
by checking change of puppy panting pace.
And all the while sitting, heard the taunts
of distant creatures in night’s carapace.
With plan selected, Stella threw the ball
of fluff that trusted her since rescue from
the log months back, a life she could recall
compared to this one, well, was deaf and dumb.
She got a chill and shivered. Life apart
from listlessness and teasing warmed her heart.

Context — People test people.

35.
While settling to bed, an air remained
unsettling and incomplete. Both stirred
instead of nodding gently off, they strained
to shake the air that made them feel interred.
“Hey BLING,” said Stella quietly, to test
if pup was subject to an equal haunt,
“you think Abu is different from the rest?”
She filled ensuing silence, “Yes! A jaunt
is what we need to really verify
if he’s as wedded to adventure as
the two of us, we’ve got to clarify
he’s got precisely what we think he has.”
Unclear if understanding was the cause,
BLING rose to go, and stretched his limbs, and yawned.

Context — Canine instincts to rake together a bed hold strong.

34.
This somnolence inured to help our team,
arriving sans the stress of discipline
atop their minds, for Grandmum was adream
and showed all signs that she would miss it when
they entered, loud or soft, on toe or heel.
BLING dug his bed into imagined leaf,
as dogs are wont to do, not minding real
floorboards of wood (not leaves) stretched out beneath
their paws. Perhaps we’re opposite of dogs,
who let imagined objects contradict
their eyes and act as asked by body’s logs
encoded for survival. Nature’s tricked
at least one species with genetic code,
that seems from kin to kin does not erode.

Context — ‘Shamba’ is the Swahili word for farm.

33.
By time that BLING and Stella made it home,
old Grandmum, deep asleep, was unperturbed,
her habit never had been to go comb
the outdoors for her girl. A tame suburb
was not remotely where their shamba stood,
encouraging the elderly to stay
indoors, and sheltered from the fearsome wood,
to not participate in nature’s fray.
And, much like humans everywhere, her fears
ensconced themselves in hidden world view,
her attitudes soon justified the years
she’d never ventured forth to find the new.
But actions molding mind deserve no blame:
dear Reader, we’re both subject to the same.

Context — …

32.
of sun, as hope, that shined through thickened banks,
intoxicating childhood fantasies.
Then Stella said, “I never thought our ranks
would swell to three. So, maybe you agree?”
Once voiced, the weighty ask left Stella light,
as wispy in the wind as he had seemed.
Her simple act of being so forthright
was tinged by risk that, offer unredeemed
from girl in search of true companionship,
would crush her confidence like bully’s punch.
“You know, I heard a lonesome banyan strip
is hidden in the forest. After lunch
tomorrow, let’s go bushwhack, just because
it isn’t native shouldn’t give us pause.”

Context — Resonance’s delirium.

31.
“It’s all affected me since I was young.
My duty’s to become a worldly sheikh,
regain the face we had before we’d flung
ourselves across the world.” Right then, heartbreak,
as far as it could be felt by a child
enveloped Stella, who had long without
a standard parent ever reconciled,
no mother, father figure. Left in doubt,
she there, with Abu, jointly understood
they longed in ways to see the wider world,
they sought in ventures meaning, wondered could
they forge themselves in wilderness. Thoughts swirled
above their heads as if they’d conjured clouds
of dreams between them, heads as hills with shrouds

Context — Nobody has a simple story.

30.
“At home,” Abu began, “I’m one of eight.
My parents heard their cousin’s sister’s niece
was near to an inherited estate,
as diabetes hit. Her man, obese,
was ousted from his title to the land,
my family was left in foreignness
of Tanzania, food and home unplanned.
Imagine,” he continued, “sore in this
is me, forgotten as my family coped
by squatting on some land and planting crops,
subsistence eked out on a plot that sloped
so much your standing view was of treetops
the next plot over. But they still upheld
the family honor, as they felt compelled.