A sonnet for Vera
by cricketjeff on January 7, 2010. © Jeff Green, All rights reserved
I cannot read a word in Byelorusian,
Ukrainian’s as opaque as steel to me
But Vera’s let me join in the discussion
About the merits of their poetry.
I first read her as Nature’s correspondent,
A list of Russian probes and satellites,
Her death has left me feeling quite despondent
There won’t be any more of her delights.
We met online when she was Clerihewing,
She wrote about a Georgian Scientist,
I read it with impressed “I never knewing”
And realised how much of life I’d missed.
A poet with the talent to bewitch,
There’ll never be another Vera Rich
Author notes
Maybe I should have used one of the East European sonnet forms she brought to
us monolingual English speakers but she loved a Shakespearean sonnet too.
It would have been good if she and I were American, then I could have used
something like
Who else has left a larger empty niche
There’ll never be another Vera Rich
as the couplet, but they don’t rhyme over here
[Posts%20by%20cricketjeff%202_files/happy.gif]
It has been remarked that l2 is hard to scan, I am pronouncing it thus
you-CRANE-yans AS o-PAKE as STEEL to ME
English