Re Sonnet 73

It’s hanging on the wall. The Fender Jazz Bass my father gave me 40 years ago.

It’s a beautiful instrument, capable of such depths of tone and feeling. It has its quirks. The strings are set a bit too high. It takes forever to reach the lowest notes.

But the reward for reaching is worth it. Deep, resonating tones that fill your insides and takes you to a place of discovery.

Most of the time it just hangs there, growing older with time. Showing, not singing. Lingering, not living.

I recently picked it up. It played well, but there was a string at one fret that buzzed. I kept coming back to that note, hoping to coax some clarity out of it,  and I think the bass was trying, too. Trying to be part of the music it was created to complement.

But it’s getting older, and a sign of things to come is now embedded in its frets.

I wrestled with publishing this one. Although I enjoyed the challenge of comparing my life with a bass guitar, this blog, like Shakespeare’s sonnet that inspired it, feels a bit hopeless, like resigning to the inevitable.

The reality is that, with the Lord, nothing is hopeless. There are stages and seasons of life on this earth. But they’re all passing in the end. And the passing is on to life 2.0. I can’t wait for that.

In the meantime, life 1.0 calls.

Here’s the sonnet…