An Earth Day Ponder from a Michelangelo Sonnet

These lines below are the last few lines of a Michelangelo sonnet.

Remind me, friend; why I wake;
why this world, 
though it troubles us,
is worth our trouble still

In a mere eighteen words, it encompasses the challenge of life in a warm and encouraging way.

The true sign of a genius: a successful simplification of an endless complexity — milk.

It was serendipity who brought these moving lines of Michelangelo into my life via a new book called Say Spirit.

The book contains the original Italian sonnets translated three times by three different voices, getting queerer each time.

Alex Rose, a Sheffield based poet, who has translated the sonnets, they do this by investigating the trans in translation, binary language and thought and identity.

Read the full poem and more of Michelangelo sonnets in Say, Spirit by Alex / Rose Cocker (Girasol Press).

#Michelangelo #SaySpirit #AlexRose