Month: October 2014

durability

Durability

Durable strength – be it strong and able;
with resilient build, with spinal structure;
be it rugged, be it tough and stable;
forms a shape that’s hard to rupture.
Dependable strength – with guts and grit;
there when a crisis comes to crunch;
there when needed; there in the midst of it;
a powerhouse; a pool of potential punch!
Disabled strength – crippled and lame;
buckled and bent with nothing to harness;
a spent force, nothing but a crying shame;
a collapse of faith, be it more or less.
. Strength – not given break or buffer,
. under weight will cause us all to suffer.

© Tim Grace, (WS-Sonnet 66: line 8) 25 April 2011

To the reader: The concept of strength has been a long-held theme of mine … an early poem read: ‘My strength is such I can not yield, and therein lies my weakness; a gentle touch can pierce my shield and shatter my completeness’. In Shakespeare’s sonnets he often refers to strength in terms of resilience, with fatigue being its major draw of energies: “Tired of these, for restful death I cry … for these would I be gone.”

To the poet: Durable, dependable and disabled strength. When giving a sonnet its structure there’s an endless pattern of combinations from which to choose; some patterns work better than others. Too obvious and the pattern becomes trite, too subtle and the effort is lost to all but the deepest of readers. In this sonnet, the visual and aural cue of strength’s dual dimensions leads the reader to your desired definition.

 

durability durability

 

good reason

Correct and True

Half right; is correct in fact.
It’s free from error’s damage.
It’s twice been checked and so exact.
It’s the best that we can manage.
Half right is true and so ideal.
It’s there in a lover’s kiss.
It’s passionate and full of zeal.
It’s perfect as it is.
Right is then a two-faced coin,
as would carry yang and ying.
Principles that we can join
to make a good and proper thing.
. Good reason often comes to plight,
. for rarely does it prove twice right.

© Tim Grace, (WS-Sonnet 66: line 7) 21 April 2011

To the reader: To be completely right a solution must be both correct and true. Correctness requires abidance with the facts. To be true requires loyalty despite false attraction. Half-right solutions are not, therefore, wrong; they’re just not completely right. According to circumstance, the half-right solution (being correct or true but not both) is all that’s needed. In love be true, otherwise correct.

To the poet: Semantics and pedantry are to be handled with care. Splitting meaning for no good purpose can be perceived as mischievous; spoiling for a fight. Exploring the difference between two words (correct and true) in light of a common theme (rightness) was hopefully revealing; more so than troublesome. The choice of one word over another is a qualitative decision.

 

good reason good reason