Nonsense Sonnet
by Theodora Goss

You’re sad and I’m sick, and I’ve run out of words.
You’re sick and I’m sad, and there are no more chords.
We speak a different language, that the birds understand,
but you are too far away for me to take your hand.
The bees and flowers speak it, the wind and leaves and snow,
but where it is I’m going, you cannot follow.
Anyway, you may be just a dream after all,
melting with the icicles as spring reverses fall,
reflected in puddles the color of your eyes,
as bright and insubstantial as the hues of morning skies.
If you are, I’ll dream you a little longer yet,
and you, on your part, try not to forget
that once there were words, and once there was a rhyme,
a reason underneath it all before the end of time.

(The image is The Pilgrim and the Heart of the Rose by Edward Burne-Jones.)