Sonnet #124

There is no wisdom greater than stay alive

Until the time it hurts too much, and burdens

The ones we love. But more than staying alive

There is also living. Leaving the house, around the bend

Into the city and into the forest, where people and flowers

Rise to bloom. I've sat in my bedroom too long

Killed monsters that don't exist to feel power

that isn't real, and it's time to set aside the song

of the poet, to stand and sweat and hurt and ache

To face the risk of looking foolish. Be more than vegetal

Be more than authorial, be more than just the fake

stand-ins for life made by artists like me. Enter all

crowded places, wander all hills, learn the lessons of meat

Learn the lessons artists cannot teach, of genuine heartbeats