Some things best green from outside in

 As I lay in bed listening to the rain this line came to me: Batter my heart, three person*d God.  In the way of such things, I knew it was an English mystic, but did not know it was from one of John Donne*s Holy Sonnets.  I thought of my friend Karen in New York, teaching her class on writing sonnets, and my mostly free-form verse.  While I*m at it, here is the link to Donne:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=173362

All night

The rain pommels the ground;

The window cracked open for the first time;

The cat silhouetted by the streetlight

In the window.

Large and dark,

He listens with me to the water.

It softens the earth with its

Steady

Constant

Spring opening sound.

Is it possible to pommel

Gently?

No battering this

But steady constant wet

In the dark.

I know we will be a long way

Toward green

By morning light.

Some things best open

From outside in;

Listening here

I*ve known it before,

I know it again:

Some things best green

From outside

In.