Today I was to write a sonnet. While allowed space regarding traditional sonnets, I was to keep with a general theme of “love.” I did not shoot for iambic pentameter, but I did manage ten syllables per line, except for the final two, which are nine and eleven, thus averaging ten. I made no attempt to rhyme.

I don’t think you understood love like me.
When I told Mom that you were a good man
Walking home after making arrangements
She balked. I understood and we agreed.

You had always been a difficult man.
With a world view no wider than the path
Of a tear rolling down my cheek or hers.
Coalminer tough and Irishman drunk.

Your mother died when you were only eight.
You were raised by a strict Scotsman father.
About him and you, you never told me.
He was your only father role model.

Now I wonder about me as a father,
And my wife as my children’s mother.

Look both ways in love and life.
Nobody is perfect and forgiveness is good.
But forgetting is optional.