Many thanks to Earth & Altar and arts and culture editor Terry J. Stokes for thoughtfully engaging this piece and giving it a wonderful home.

“Grazing on the Kyll” is a sonnet in the Petrarchan or Italian model, inspired by recent reading and revisiting of formal structures. It opened up the writing of two other pieces, which I hope to place soon.

While I have never been of the opinion that there is only one way to write (and I don’t typically write formal verse), the challenge of the form was rewarding for me as a writer. I hope it will be rewarding for readers, too.

Read it here, and feel free to comment below!