The Alma Sonnets

Alma 5:38
Behold, I say unto you, that the shepherd doth call you; yea, and in his own name he doth call you, which is the name of Christ; and if ye will not hearken unto the voice of the good shepherd, by which ye are called, behold, ye are not the sheep of the good shepherd.

The shepherd calls his bleating lambs to keep
Within the well-spring of His voice to hear
A whispering that wakes the lambs from sleep
And in the hollows of their hearts will sear
His name, his name that echos like a drum
Reverberating kind benevolence
Ears once stopped once stupefied once dumb
Must shed the mufflers of insolence
And sear upon the ear’s own sounding board
The holy name Christ the shepherd good
And train the ear to grasp His voice and score
These whisperings stored up as heavenly food
Then deep within they hear the Shepherds call
Or else be left to wander, wither, fall.

Alma 5:15

Do ye exercise faith in the redemption of him who created you? Do you look forward with an eye of faith, and view this mortal body raised in immortality, and this corruption in incorruption, to stand before God to be judged according to the deeds which have been done in the mortal body?

Can you with honesty recount this day
In which your itching flesh did steal about
The carnal streets of life in which you play?
And in that frenzied dancing find but doubt
In He who made thy form to slither through
These littered streets of opportunity
To shed these weighty scales and doubt eschew
To trust in His redemption coming free?
Can you then with scale-less eye more clear
Perceive the deeper meaning of the itch?
Feel it soothed abetted in a smear
Of the Creator’s healing balmy pitch?
Can this same eye now see that frenzied dance
When hammer falls like you beneath His glance?





Alma 5:52
And again I say unto you, the Spirit saith: Behold, the is laid at the root of the tree; therefore every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit shall be down and cast into the fire, yea, a fire which cannot be consumed, even an unquenchable fire. Behold, and remember, the Holy One hath spoken it.

Mark it that a voice from heaven warns
The ax the tree the image to inflame
The fruitless mind the fruitless life to shame
Reveal the barren soul but food for worms
Now see the flame with fangs bared out to feast
Now see that wooded though not fruited tree
An everlasting scorched sterility
Made house for seed again in flames that cease
Not even in the end. When time roles out
His parched and leathery tongue like carpet bags
Long stayed long baked beneath the long day’s sun
Not setting though the day is done. A sprout
May spring from heated charcoal then these fags
Mark the heavenly voice that says ‘it’s done’!


Alma 5:26
And now behold, I say unto you, my brethren, if ye have experienced a of heart, and if ye have felt to sing the of redeeming love, I would ask, ye feel so now?

There was a song that once upon a day
Sang out a lovely tune upon your heart
A heart that felt vibrations pulse and sway
Resounding in its caverns every part
Beating out that chamber’s sour dis-chord
Beating in a kinder harmony
Setting free the chambers gated hoard
Of humming, purring, sweet felicity
That then within the violin did ring
That then within the piper’s pipe did tweet
That then within an angels’ chorus sing
Within these beating chamber walls so sweet
Has that sweet song now faded to a din?
A droning pandemonium within?