Sonnet

Philip Miller

To hold my son is to hold my father,
the clasp a chance to grieve again.
Even if the time between is farther
than our first love, the eyes remain
the same, locks and mien. Cruel genes
locked in their dread encoded fate
pave the path to the seen and unseen
for you my tender boy, who will wait
on me when I am as infirm and frail
as my sire, or descendants, infants pale. 
So, this embrace holds not two but many,
a knot whose cords bind love to infinity.

Listen to Philip Miller reading “Sonnet” above. You can find other podcasts of authors sharing their work here.

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Author’s Commentary: “Sonnet” was inspired by reading a brilliant book about Shakespeare's Sonnets by the poet Don Paterson, and a desire to try and address an emotion about my children that I could not otherwise express.

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Philip Miller is a writer, poet and journalist based in Scotland. He has written new novels, The Blue Horse (2015, Freight) and All The Galaxies (2017, Allen and Unwin) and has had poems published online and in journals.

He grew up in the North of England, and now lives in Edinburgh. He has just completed a third novel, The Hollow Tree.