What Joy! (A Sweet Sonnet)

Through the leaves appears an eerie gleam,
The setting sun – so red, so wild – so bleak!
And now I hear the rooks, so crazed they seem,
They screech and scream, “‘tis death to come!” they shriek!

A cloud of gnats above the pond I see,
They frisk and frolic – in glow’ring light they dance;
A cloud of dancing specks - they seem so free,
A dance of joy, so brief, then death perchance?

The sun’s outraged, distraught - what does this mean?
“So crazed with life!” the screeching rooks reply;
The gnats, who danced in life, faced death unseen,
And on the water’s surface now they die.

What augurs now for peace and joy in life -
For us in times ahead, with ills so rife?