One True Love 1

Sonnet I


Misty out, I rise for my devotions,
So pale and agape before you there,
Entreating, bent low with supplication,
Making mystic ceremonious prayer.

Convoluted in your omnipresence
Involving aromatic, palpable
And all that I possess which sense,
I kneel in rapture, slow, intractable.

My knees are on the floor before the altar;
I bow and brush the chalice with my breath.
The cathedral, velvet draped, won’t falter
Until the union between life and death.

Thus do I make ‘raptured, carnal motions,
And compensate withal with devotions.


"Sonnet I" was first published in the self-published booklet Son(love)nets, 1975.  It is a traditional Shakespearan sonnet with a rhyme scheme of abab cdcd efef gg and written in iambic pentameter. The persona (speaker) of the poem is obviously in love.

This and succeeding blogs are poems written to or about two women that I loved and still love. I am not going to name the women involved in this blog, for I haven’t spoken to them, so it would not be fair to name them without their knowledge.

The first one I loved and thought I would be with forever, but circumstances turned out otherwise, even though I never stopped loving her.

The second one helped me understand myself better, so I could move on from the loss of the first.

If either reads this blog, she will recognize the poems, for she had them before the world had them.

I am publishing them in this order: one to the first woman, one about the loss, one to the second woman. I will publish three every week.

This first poem is the first of 10 sonnets that I wrote to this woman, who was my mate. I wrote one every month for the first ten months of our being together until the relationship began to break down and turn into a battle of wills.


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