Sonnet I (Petrarchan)

If all the world were softness of your arms
Then never would I need for comfort more.
The vastness all of sea and sky and shore
Turned calm, with serpent veins that swim, though harm

No creatures 'neath the milky film and form

Of skin that swells in shallow waves. The roar

Of torrents falling 'pon the land may pour
On ears of bird and beast, yet leave all warm.

For life without your forest glen of chest,
Should prove too harsh, too granite-like, too dark.
The silence there, devoid of heart in breast,

Too empty to sustain a shoot or stalk,

And missing lungs and breath, leave winds too stark
For me, now loving more, to live with less.