Assignment winner for Feb 14, 2006

The assignment for this week: Someone asks your character what love is. How does he/she respond?

The winner: Bob Blackman!

WHAT IS LOVE
In iambic octameter

Please, what is love, I asked the sage
Is it concrete or just a dream?
Is it a play upon a stage,
Or is it more, something supreme?

The sage, he sat and thought a while
His silence, minutes, days, a week.
Concentration without a smile,
T'was mute this bard of words mystique.

In February, upon the ides
He whispered soft, much like a bird
A mystery this sage provides
Conundrum were, the words I heard.

I shake my head, acquire bearing
My mind, it twists, resists and squirms
Said he, "love is one half sharing,
Sharing struggles, labor and germs."

"Second half of love is bearing
Lovers sorrow, sadness, woes.
Tempers wearing, silent swearing."
Confusion and frustration grows.

"Love is Hoping without a cause
It's trusting with no guarantees
It's worrying without a pause
Measureless stress without degrees."

He said that Love's a dreadful word
A word of bane of trial and pain
Theater of the most absurd
Yet still I long, to it attain.