Sappho (Free Verse Sonnet) Poem by Gert Strydom

(after Lina Spies)
I

People that had to lead from the front do lead others down the abyss,
say that You had an illegitimate child with Mary Magdalene,
that You did disappear with her into the bushes,
that You looked at her as the whore that she really was
and do forget that at the grave where she was crying
You did tell her not to touch you
and Your love is for sinners and Godly for anyone
that does make You the master of their hearts
where Mary Magdalene did truly come to a conversion,
did break her most valuable salve over your feet
and do have people up to now still speechless
but was only asking forgiveness
as she wanted to follow and serve you with gladness:
as a human see You as the light and the living God.

II

If a human do see You as the light and the living God
there comes peace with Your love into the heart
and then a person wants to abandon all sin and unrighteousness,
even if it's a road of pain and anguish

but now homosexuals do make You one of them
say that You did love Peter and John in a twisted way
where at a time You did reprimand
Peter for being Satan

and John was like Your brother
where at the crucifixion Peter did You deny,
did later cry about this in his distress
and You do know the hearts of all humans fully,

did pour out Your love for humanity in Your death
as the stainless Lamb of God was slaughtered

III


Of you I do have a summer's, sun and sea memories
but far too little is left of you,
mostly only dreams and thoughts that I do keep safe in my heart
as between us a lifetime and decades are missing,
the longing of the years where I did loose all hope
for almost a whole lifetime did flow together into prayers
as if I am clinging to you and our love
against the going of life in a silent resistance
while for years I do remember you in loneliness,
where my life has unfolded ghostly at a time
where constantly I am writing love poems
as if with them I am still clinging to you
as if our love do light up the darkness in my heart,
while my feelings do stay sincere and intense.