A birthday sonnet
for my son-in-law Eric Sweet
The art of printmaking, they say, centers
on originality. That just fits
you: a true original. Consider
yourself a monotype, a composite
of man called artist—melded by the Muse
from the best who’ve come before. When Rembrandt
etched his amazed selfie, or Goya fused
his “Disasters of War,” or Vallotton
kissed his “Cogent Reason,” surely they sensed
something in your waiting soul, your mustached
mouth pressing your wife’s loving cheek—presence
of all that’s human. When Dürer’s eye flashed
upon St. Jerome in his study, surely
he sensed your wit in the great scholar’s psyche.
Roger Armbrust
September 15, 2014
