This poem is taken from PN Review 65, Volume 15 Number 3, January - February 1989.

Sonnets

C.H. Sisson

1
The minutes have gone by, the hours, the days,
The years have counted themselves up, and now
That little piece of time, a life, is proud
To show itself complete: 'fini' it says.
Yet I who speak for it so many ways
Cannot say this: the when, the where, the how
Must be determined first, and who knows
Less well than I what may be the delays?
To be on the outside and yet to speak
Is not a thing the mind of man can compass,
Yet inside I am inside something else
Than the completed life and cannot break
The circle of it to see it as it is
Even now, at the end even less.

2
No other language but that of the Creed
Will serve to say the things which must be said.
And what things are they? All things, I said:
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