My third published poem was a sonnet that I had written in the early 90’s when my boyfriend, then living in Italy, and I agreed that we should each write a sonnet. At the time I was working full-time as a social services Team Manager, Children and Families, and doing an evening class on poetry at Keele University. Our homework was to write a sonnet.
When I started writing poetry seriously after retiring, I sent this poem out to a few place but it was not accepted. In January 2020 I sent it to the USA magazine, Nightingale and Sparrow, for their Love edition for Valentine’s Day. It was published on 14.2.2020 and I was very pleased I hadn’t given up on it – my first poem in a print literary magazine:
To a Distant Lover
Why hold my heart and love so far away?
Brief sparks of joy explode and then are gone.
These winter days of unremitting grey
are bitter images of life where sun
is but a memory. Oh, lover return
and light shall split the grey. The warmth of love
will thaw my heart and I’ll no longer yearn
for kisses slow, caresses sweet. Above
the sky will break and shine with rainbow light,
reflecting joy that brims and overflows,
‘till barren days and tears that drench the night
are washed away and cleanse the winter snows.
So lover take heed and hasten back to me,
colour the grey and set my spirit free.
