"When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unus'd to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,
And moan th' expense of many a vanish'd sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoane`d moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restor'd and sorrows end."
--Sonnet XXX by William Shakespeare


"Oh, how the waves of memory define
All love and labor lost in losing lines,
Parallel and pointing as I pine
To feed my failing fear that I can't find.
But still I search as silent as a cloud,
Drifting as dreaded grays impend.
Bring I rain and storm and fear so loud,
Or must I mesh and have my days depend
On what my life can offer to my soul?
Words were weakened all in weary woe
Trying and dying in finding now I need a goal
To which my failure's all I know.

Yet your eyes of beauty drown me still
The waves unmatche`d twixt your gentle will.
And a couplet more shall I add to show
How I'm lucky having beauty so bestow'd."
--me, 3 years ago.

The trees that sway so strongly in the wind
Have yet to feel the raw emotions flail.
The birds that in their somber sadness sing
Have yet to find the lack of comfort fail.
Tis nature's call to let the heart feel pain.
The agony allow'd when heads have rolled,
Heavy from the tears that their eyes drain,
Is but an agony my daily eyes behold.
Pure pain, despondent in its lonely form,
Has met the starless night so bleak and stark.
The meeting lasts from midnight til the morn
Maybe in time to let the Maker mold his mark.
But though the Lord has left us all to die,
He graced me with your death-defying eyes.