Understanding

Robert Guy Kemp

When she shows me her sonnet newly penned
I feel a mild discomfiture of mind:
Might I not lose a lover and a friend
If meaning in her words I fail to find?
I temporise and nod as if I see
Her hieroglyphs resolving into sense.
But no, they won’t declare themselves to me;
Where light should shine the darkness is intense.
The scansion is imperfect, rhyme impure;
The essence of the piece remains concealed.
Her guidance slowly makes it less obscure
Till finally the poem stands revealed.
Now she and I and it one unity
Our friendship may outlive eternity.