Shakespeare's Sonnet No. 13

{Callie's version - for JC, on our 26th anniversary}

O, that you were your self! But, love, you are
No longer yours than you yourself here live;
Against this coming end you should prepare,
And your sweet semblance to some other give.
So should that beauty which you hold in lease
Find no determination; then you were
Your self again after yourself’s decease
When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.
Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,
Which husbandry in honor might uphold
Against the stormy gusts of winter’s day
And barren rage of death’s eternal cold?
O, none but unthrifts, dear my love, you know.
You had a father; let your son say so.

-William Shakespeare

The blue Adidas and the plaid shorts that
you wore on an almost September day
Love, I did not know I was looking at 
the father of Hadley and Harper. That day
you were your energetic self and I
wanted in. My determination was 
you. The beauty you and I held would fly
to our blue-eyed girls. That is what love does.
On this winter's day, are there stormy gusts?
Have we continued to become ourselves?
It is true, our days are filled with musts;
perhaps part of who we are sits on shelves
      Twenty-six January sixteens later,
       I still say, "love,"; we have made each other greater.

-Callie R. Feyen