Sonnet 556

As morning sun shall rise, so must it set

To mete again a sweet or bitter day

And once quite surely gone, it rises yet

To mark out time in single candled ways.

So measured life in darkness and in light

Plays out in puppet shadows on a wall

As if by some mischievous manus sleight—

Designed to much amuse, or yet to gall.

From golden sconce forever hope is shone

So life ekes on amidst quotidian dreams,

Penumbral shadows coalesced at dawn;

Form strange ombromanies upon a screen.

And still we dance beneath that ageless sun,

In shadowed trance, ‘til moonless night shall come.

Loubert S Suddaby poems