#466: This is a love letter to my dear wife . . .

As you may already know, I have taken on the task of writing a sonnet every day for the month of April in celebration of National Poetry Writing Month. This project sort of precludes me from what I typically do in April–which is to respond to as many daily and optional prompts from the NaPoWriMo website as float my boat. It turns out that the prompts posted there are often structural and not simply suggestions for topics. So far, the first and only prompt that seemed to fit the bill was the one that suggested a sonnet! But two days in a row now, the prompts have been more topic or subject-driven. Yesterday’s prompt was to write a “review” poem. Today’s prompt challenges us to write a love poem, one that names at least one flower, contains one parenthetical statement, and in which at least some lines break in unusual places. Okay then, sonnets are pretty well suited to all of these things. So, today, I’m following the prompt to write a love poem–and it turns out–I’m able to borrow the first line of the poem (almost) verbatim from yesterday’s sonnet. I am back to ignoring rhyme, loosely following the rhythmic pattern of a traditional sonnet, but holding on to the rhyming couplet. Here’s a fun little experiment: sometimes the line can LOOK like a ten syllable line, but contain about twice as many syllables. It shouldn’t be hard to spot!

Twenty-five

This is a love letter to my dear wife:
The sun is out today for a welcome 
Change, and by week’s end it’s supposed 
to get warm. What are those purple 
flowers called (winter pansies) that survived
Through all the cold and wet? Those things. 
We’re kind of like those, tolerate a lot, 
Stick together, hang in there, don’t give up.
And it has not always been so easy.
And what do you call those flowers 
That come up by themselves (volunteers, 
like Sweet William Catchfly)? Yeah, those. 
Imperfect and perennial, 13,429 days;
We show up for each other most always.