A Naked Tree: Love Sonnets to C.S. Lewis and Other Poems (Eerdmans, 2015) is a new comprehensive collection of her poetry, which includes the complete manuscript of her 1938 collection, Letter to a Comrade, which won both the Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition, and the Russell Loines Memorial Award. It also includes many poems addressed to Lewis, including a sequence of 45 love sonnets which she wrote in her pursuit of a love relationship with him.
My review of A Naked Tree will appear in the forthcoming issue of Sehnsucht: The C.S. Lewis Journal.
Love Sonnets to C.S. Lewis XXXIV
No, it was neither you, nor God, but I
Whose nature drove the dagger in my side
So deadly near my heart; if I should die
Of loving you, call it suicide.
Had I the choice of being otherwise
Than this meek amorous wretch? I cannot know;
I can be certain that I would not choose
Any lesser gate of death than you.
If I rebel, it is not that I crave for
More of this world's sweet poison in my food;
Only, when I see my children sleeping,
I think I have a task to keep alive for;
But they and I must take our chance on God.
Let it be as He wills, and no more weeping.
Entry written by D.S. Martin. His latest poetry collection, Conspiracy of Light: Poems Inspired by the Legacy of C.S. Lewis, is available from Wipf & Stock as is his earlier award-winning collection, Poiema.
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