Petrarch and Laura and you

Petrarch, poor fool,
loved Laura from afar.
If Laura was anything like you,
who could blame the sad monk
for dreaming and desiring
and wiling away the hours
letting words do what he would not allow his body?

Like him, I have no peace,
I can not now make war nor love,
to impress you, except with words
and rough-drawn sketches on a flimsy page.

If Laura had ever kissed Petrarch,
we would never have known the beauty
of his rhythmic lines,
the nuances would be lost...
who writes a poem
when ephemeral love lies in your arms?
So if my lines tire you, there's an easy remedy:

His love lives on in the lines of his poetry
because he never tasted her lips...
in ecstasy and agony, he let his
pent-up passion pen his prayers.
Even when his words described
an idyllic woodland stream or a field full of lavender,
Laura, like you, was at the heart of each line.

So be careful when you kiss;
one might be tempted to believe that heaven
is wherever you happen to be,
then prayers and poems would have to wait
as I will for you.