Valentines Day

Some find love is like the violet's scent

Which, with it's fragrant, rich, delight

Overcomes and kills the nose's sense

As quick as darkness robs our eyes of sight.

I, while searching for a constant strength

In one who would stay married to my hopes,

Worry that my fickle fancy may at length

Chafe against love's most welcomed ropes.

This brings as much pain, I have to say,

To new love starting as does facing that 

Past love with passing time did fade away

And leave my hopes divorced from fact.

It matters not with which blame might lay

My fear is pain for both if either lacks.

So I here fret amongst these rhyming lines

In both dread and hope for Valentines.

This is from 1993, I wrote "Violets" in 1975 and "Roses" in it's original form in 1984; in 2005 I rewrote it in sonnet form. I have a love of the sonnet form, although I don't always stick to 14 lines, as in "Valentines Day." There is precedent for this 16 line form although you have to dig deep in the literature to find it. Whatever the form, I've always been rather happy about this one!