How Wonderful to Know and Not To Know 

How wonderful to know and not to know

of chance and circumstance that might have been

never expressed but for your toothy grin.

Which must sustain me even as you go.

 

With both hands, I would part the folds of time.

A bright kaleidoscope that would reveal

realities which must remain surreal

within the safe enclosures of my mind.

 

How thankful am I to have seen the day.

To be both character and audience,

both witness to and dancer in the dance;

a chorister within your passion play.

 

This sonnet then, to be a guarantee,

that you in days to come remember me.

Louis William Rose

May 2002

(For Leslie Sares on the occasion of her departure to Italy with her husband, Jack)