A Sonnet for Adriana Upon her Trip to Rome

  • Posted on: 1 June 2011
  • By: Jay Oyster

Adriana standing in a vinyardBack in 2002, Adriana took a trip to the Netherlands and Italy with her parents. I wrote a poem, a sonnet, for her then and sent it to her in Italy. I just stumbled across it today. We're almost never separated these days, but the feeling remains.

I hope, my love, that when you reached Milan
but newly free from Netherlandish nets
(you flew away to see an ancient land
of Escher towns and Petrarchan sonnets)
I hope you fell in love, your soul a-boil,                                                                                           
for there’s the land that made the word ‘Romance’
..the sun drenched hills, Chianti red-soaked soil,
I know thee well, dear one, and how it will entrance,
But please don’t fall too deeply in its sway.
Your heart will flood because there are no
breaks to halt it flooding in its way                                                                                                   
as springtime rains oft’ swell the fair Arno.                                                                                        
Hold, for one glimpse of thee my eyes do yearn,
Faith, one doth wait pining for your return.