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Sonnet XIII
On days you do not need my sound embrace,
When tenderness and warmth envelop you
And Fortune shines upon your amber face
And suffering and sorrow are but few,
I wonder what your mind then does with me?
From the shore the grey tide pulls away;
Of sandy boundaries it would be free.
The siren moon has other things to say
And draws the wave and wavelet back to shore.
Much like the lunar moth cannot resist
The deadly glow of bug light by the door,
The nature of these things seems to persist.
The waves? A part of this much vaster sea,
Swelling and contracting endlessly.
.
.
Dr. Jenna Tedesco is a psychologist specializing in the treatment of trauma using mindfulness-based practices in a psychodynamic framework. She has been writing poetry since enjoying the fine mentorship of Dr. Rachael Hadas in 1990.
Dr. Tedesco, this sonnet gem is replete with salient symbolism that is at once enchanting and sincere. The most salient line for me is the question, “I wonder what your mind then does with me?” While the other lines are more beautiful, this question speaks for the heart of the sonnet.
This is a beautiful and carefully polished piece of work, reminiscent of the earlier school of love sonnets.
Since this sonnet is numbered (XIII) I assume that it is part of a sonnet sequence. Many of such traditional sequences deal with the relationship of two lovers (this was especially true of sequences from the 1590s), and this is even the case with a later sequence like Meredith’s “Modern Love,” about a failed marriage.
In this poem the speaker questions his or her friend/lover/intimate/spouse on personal feelings. There is a strong tone of complaint and dissatisfaction, which is common in sonnet sequences of this type. The speaker bemoans some kind of discord or estrangement from the addressee.
Note that the volta comes early, in line 6. The complaint now moves towards an extended simile of the moon’s pull on the waves, and moths being drawn to lights. The poem then closes with a general comment on “waves” being part of the endlessly swelling and contracting tides. I suggest that these “waves” represent the speaker and the one addressed, with the notion that they are sometimes together and sometimes parted on a regular basis. This also might be a complaint, or perhaps just an expression of acquiescence.
This is a beautiful and cryptic sonnet. I thought that the lover being spoken to is perhaps being tempted by “the siren moon” to pull away from the “grey tide”, (the habit of returning to the narrator-lover) and be “free” of these “sandy boundaries”, wanting to explore beyond them to other lovers, like the “lunar moth” that “cannot resist the deadly glow….”
In any case, the metaphor of moon/tide/waves of the sea, is beautifully carried through the sonnet. And the imagery is exquisite, particularly that last line!
I loved reading this poem and was also especially struck by “I wonder what your mind then does with me?” It does seem to send the reader to a beautifully evoked melancholy.
Most of what I might have said has already been written. That said, I was particularly taken by the final couplet, reminding us that in spite of the daily tribulations that affect us, the ocean is a wide and infinite place – and perhaps that there are plenty more fish in the sea!
Thanks for the read, Jenna.
“I wonder what you mind then does with me?” completes the first part of this multi-level sonnet. After it, personal concerns are left behind with personal pronouns, and there remain only images telling of the moon’s force on the tides, and the light’s attraction of the moth–both emblems of persistent nature. These particulars, too, pass into the “vaster sea” of the couplet. It’s an enigmatic poem, casting out into the deep. The expression is calm though the sea is not. Thoughtful and enjoyable, Jenna.
This is a perfect sonnet redolent of the ones composed during the golden age of poetry. The poet’s sentiment (the question put forth), pertaining to lovers, is universal and something so strong that one cannot help but overthink. What does the subject do when everything is fine and dandy? Does he think about her counterpart? Does the candle burn at both sides? The answers to these start from line 6. Perhaps the subject has other affairs to think of when the speaker’s warmth is not required (just as the waves retrace their paths to the sea when their meeting with the shore is done). However, that’s not the end: those waves will kiss the shore again; the moth still longs for the light, and parting and meeting are two imperative parts of any relationship (just like the ebb and flow of the waves). Wonderful sonnet. It has stolen my heart.
This is a great love, sonnet in the classic tradition. I love the lunar imagery and the use of the tides as a metaphor for the force of attraction the beloved exerts.