Harriet, forget that question ~ you do say the sonnet, but I had only briefly looked at the mail, and the villanelle is much more obscure! The sonnet is somewhat easier to follow if one reconstitutes its original (Petrarchan, if I recall correctly) form, but this way sounds better, and I'm better at sound than sense (my comprehensible poems are embarrassingly banal). I wrote it 33 years ago, the villanelle about 3.

à bientôt,

Martin

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