Farmer's Market Sonnets: Winter 2012-2013 - Softcover

A collection of sonnets written in the winter of 2012-2013 for shoppers at the Berkeley and Oakland farmers' markets. Each sonnet was written on the spot for customers as they shopped at the farmers' markets, based on a custom theme of their choosing. Next to each sonnet is a short story of its genesis and the theme that brought it into being. Sample sonnets: Winter The cold comes creeping in on nimble feet And takes us unaware who cling to light, In California, we are not complete No more than day is day without the night. In secret do we long to feel the chill That helps us mark the borders of our joys, The winter is a breeze against the sill, The plucking of the music from the noise. At other times we breath and we forget The gift that breathing is and breathing keeps, 'til winter lights the foggy pirouette That dances from our lips in shrouded leaps. The winter, like the night, is when we change And come to see the light as something strange. Giving in to Darkness The sun must pass us by and leave us dark Though she may long to linger in the sky, If she her golden skiff should disembark To half the world she'd close her beaming eye. Thus she who cannot change her course still burns, Bequeathing light to evening's counterpart, And in the darkness as the cold earth turns Her bright ambassador still wields her art, And even when this emissary fails, The wake left by her passing stirs the night, And thus the dark the clutching sun bewails Is punctuated by another light. This light on earth could not be seen without This letting go, the giving in to doubt.