The persistence of objects

The problem with unpacking, especially when I get to the point I'm at--dealing with memorabilia and the other flotsam of my life--is the repeated intrusions of the past. I find a photograph (of friends at a twacked pool party) or a letter (from my sister during my first year of college) or a collection of poems (saved because they mattered so much). Unpacking a box can seem to take as many years as the echoes of its contents.

One of the poems I found--a sonnet by Petrarch--is one that I've searched for on the web twice in the last couple of years, unable to find even a mention of it. I wrote one of my best college papers about his sonnets. I was struggling with issues of my sexuality, and his yearning for his Laura illuminated my own turmoil.

So now I'll put it out there (Google, please index this one right away :-).

Here is Petrarch's Sonnet 131:

Now while the wind and earth and heavens rest,
While sleep holds beast and feathered bird in fee,
And high above a calm and waveless sea
The silent stars obey the night's behest,
I lie awake and yearning, sore distressed
Tortured by thoughts of my sweet enemy;
And though her face recalled brings death to me
'Tis only with such dreams I soothe my breast.
So from one living fountain, gushing clear,
Pour forth alike the bitter and the sweet,
And one same hand can deal me good or ill;
Whence every day I die anew of fear
And live again to learn that hope's a cheat,
So peace of heart or mind escapes me still.