The Stormy Calm of End [sonnet]
Condemned to live without a woman’s touch
for once too often love had been betrayed.
Perhaps the word «condemned» you think too much
because by choice that bold resolve was made.
The desert has a beauty of its own —
a boundless smooth and undulating sea;
just like the flesh which once had been enthroned
within the mind which now spurns company.
Yet, in eremic wastes there is sublime
and slakeful consolation to be found;
as pouring sand is used to portray time
with promises of soundless underground.
For only in the stormy calm of end
can we the taint of treachery transcend.
© 2011, Alan Morrison
The Naked Troubadour 