Love Note to Sonnet

Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art—John Keats

At two a.m. I ponder Sonnet’s art-

a form meets torment, to love eon’s night,

my head splitting iambs, feet wide apart,

the ghosts of stanzas form clay’s Eremite.

A churning of topics when love’s the task,

of counting to ten like wave sets on shores,

or rhyming, donning a mother goose mask

from nurseries, Nannie’s on long ago moors-

At last third quatrain still unchangeable,

this structure a love song to time’s full breast

to whisper and ponder lyrics they swell,

just two lines to volta, squash this unrest!

To dance in ethers of past poets’ breath,

Oh sonnet eternal, never know death.