Sonnets

Sonnet #1

Now that we’ve made it home from hospital,
A month and more has quickly passed us by.
Sweet Indigo, our child, is not so small
As she was when she told your womb goodbye.

And at six weeks her namesake’s hue mistakes
The truer shade that to this time applies.
Some call it colic, that time when a parent breaks
Down on knees at the sound of purple cries.

But Chelsea, love, your love is soft and kind.
You cure the sighs of both father and child.
In gentleness your strength our troubles bind,
To soothe the sorrow and to tame the wild.

And so I live to love still one more day:
Your heart, your soul, your beauty, and your way.

Sonnet #2

Chelsea, it’s time for sonnet number two,
To show you that I love you that much more.
And further praise you as a mother true,
Whose love for dad and babe as kite doth soar.

I grew up with a brother at my side,
While you an only child had siblings none.
Now our only child Indigo smiles wide;
Say “only” when warmed by the “only” sun?

So long as kites will fly and sun will shine,
Then warmth and love I shall retain in me.
Though rays of August heat soon will decline,
And hot September starts the fall to see.

Snowpocalypse in February too
Cannot that soaring love or heat undo!

Sonnet #3 (“Calc-hyð”)

My love, with this I try a new rhyme scheme,
Departing from the rhymes of Shakespeare’s pen,
To move to Philip Sidney’s poems again,
That I might hold you yet in high’r esteem.

Shakespear’an verse, the highest it may seem?
But Astrophel for Stella’s love ascends
Up to the heavens’ height such that light bends,
And thus our poet Sidney’s crop’s the cream!

So I have borrowed one from Astrophel,
A name contrived to play on both his own —
“Phel” sounding like the shortened nickname “Phil” —
And represent his astral love within:

“Chelsea” meant “chalk-wharf” to the older sort;
Hence, “Jason” shifts to “chasin” ships to port!

Sonnet #4 (on approaching Indy’s first birthday)

Calc-hyð, our child is now almost a year,
And we have both survived the toughest times.
But now our newest challenge cometh near:
To own a house in Corpus Christi climes.

Yet e’en before that journey can begin,
We’ve lost our pow’r amidst the summer heat.
So you and Indigo, go north again,
While your Chasin sits idly in a seat.

But lo, the dog and I arrive at last,
To join the group and end our misery.
I could not stay in Arling-town and waste
Away and let the sun claim victory.

One day, my love, we must return to home,
But “home” will be where we together roam.