My thoughts of Juliet oscillate me through both despair at her loss, the emptiness that this often leaves me with, and the joyous memories of the life we spent despite the health problems she had that would have broken many people. Juliet always worried that somehow I had been cheated in our marriage, but I always disagreed. Caring for her was simply one way to show my love for her, no less than moments of extreme passion.

I have been struggling with a block on the latest in my sonnet sequence "Photos of Juliet" My mind could not focus on the joyful for a time. So I return to grieving.

This sonnet, in Italian form, is part of three different variants of the same set of thoughts, the other two being a villanelle and a sestina.

Rhyme scheme ABBA ABBA CDC EDE. Iambic hexameter, with final tercet iambic heptameter.

More words came that fit any one of them, so instead they have some life of their own and want to all be used. I will attempt to accommodate them. I hope they will be different enough to be separately interesting.

Update 13 May 2024: I have so far completed 4 more poems using the words of this and other thoughts. SO I have renamed this one Theme, with whole series to be "Theme and Variations". Variations 1 (a Quintain); 2 (a Villanelle) and 3 (a syllable Sestet) are also published. The 4th is the final piece, Coda) and is an English Sonnet. It will be published with the appropriate number when I am sure I have no more variations.