Sonnet 115 / Many Have Asked How We Stay Together (Roxanne Hoffman)

Sonnet 115
Those lines that I before have writ do lie,
Even those that said I could not love you dearer,
Yet then my judgment knew no reason why,
My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer,
But reckoning time, whose millioned accidents
Creep in 'twixt vows, and change decrees of kings,
Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp'st intents,
Divert strong minds to the course of alt'ring things:
Alas why fearing of time's tyranny,
Might I not then say 'Now I love you best,'
When I was certain o'er incertainty,
Crowning the present, doubting of the rest?
Love is a babe, then might I not say so
To give full growth to that which still doth grow.

Many Have Asked How We Stay Together
As if our love is an endurance test
or would by time deteriorate to less
and I’ve replied – half in jest – “fear of dating.”

And though it’s true, I do guard my interest
for having found in you what I obsess
after what seems years of endless waiting…

And would find myself quite hard-pressed
were I to lose this prize I now possess,
even with the rush of conquest now abating…

It is not so much fear, as fearlessness,
and more that for each battle we contest,
in this witless war known as “relating,”

We learn to more readily acquiesce,
elating in each battle scar caressed.

Many Have Asked How We Stay Together © Roxanne Hoffman(used with permission)