a certain indefinite number of Petrarchan “sonnets”: №112⅔

Ordinarily I don’t publish so much poetry at Theoria-press, and instead try to provide mostly essays with an odd poem or sonnet occasionally interspersed among them. But the Muse’s visits have outstripped my ability to keep pace with prose pieces so readers who prefer essays should peruse the archives of this site, which are replete with them. Also, I should acknowledge that the formal aspect of this “Petrarchan sonnet” is liberally conceived so it’s unnecessary to alert me that at “Petrarchan sonnet” with 16 lines and an unorthodox rhyme-scheme is like a quartet with 5 members, though reproof is always welcome from anyone who feels so moved.

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IS IT not fitly said alone we die
and in this vale of tears we never find
the thing we seek until it’s left behind
to haunt us as the dreams that passed us by
and scenes that echo through our memory
but slip between the fingers of the mind
and taunt us like epistles to the blind?
I meet your eye and catch its furtive glance—
then steals upon me, neither young nor old,
a feeling sprung from higher circumstance
my heart alone that feeling couldn’t hold:
so darling, let’s be bold and take a chance
for love will not be kept, nor bought, nor sold
but when two souls together learn to dance
their hearts can shine like lanterns in the cold
and Love alight upon them as romance