An Artifice
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways – E. B. Browning
I’ benedico il loco e ‘l tempo et l’ora – Petrarch
How can I stop myself from loving you?
How many ways can I deny the pleasure?
Could I delete each note, each beat, each measure
until the rhythm of a lie beats true?
There’s not a single day compares to you,
nor gem, nor jewel, nor glint of hidden treasure;
even a season or a life of leisure
curtails what poetry must fail to do.
If I could emulate his love for Laura
that Petrarch could achieve in fourteen lines,
contain it in a sonnet; see it more
a fantasy for love achieved in rhyme,
would I rejoice that day, or yet deplore
a longing for an encore one more time?
J. A. Sutherland has been published in print and online, and has produced three limited edition art-books, including, most recently, Charlotte & The Charlatan – and other Cautionary Tales. For more information, see throughtheturretwindow@blogspot.co.uk
andotherpoems.com 