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This new book contains
a lot of sonnets,

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which I hadn't written until--

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I hadn't even
attempted this sonnet

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until I was, well, in my 40s.

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And I only attempted it then
because an editor contacted me

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about a sonnet-off
that they were

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having to commemorate
the sonnet that Keats

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wrote about the cricket.

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So I thought, why not?

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I would just try a sonnet.

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So this is the first
sonnet I ever wrote.

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It's called "The Church
Gardens, A Walk."

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And apatite, in this
case, is a gemstone.

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Hummingbirds in
blue blurs whirr,

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necklaced around
the nectar feeder.

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Each creature gleaming bright.

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A piece of polished apatite
through whose facet sunlight

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shatters into flashing.

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Gaslights shards that fall
into the larkspur and blaze up.

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Igniting every flower.

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Each glowing petal blue
proclaims the feast

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by blue or glowing.

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Bluer than a Day-Glo wing.

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And yet though they in flames
are wrapped from stem to bloom.

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It is the fire the
flowers consume.

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