SONNET NUMBER  16

If entreating your beauty will not win
me favor from you, lady, then I must
appeal to your mercy and if you have
no pity for a wretch who lives

to see you move through life with your uncommon
grace then you rob the breath of my body
and the quick of my soul which can do you
no good and only increase your karmic

debt.  Women like you are born to truth so
young, and as you grow you deepen to an
ageless glow that enthralls a sighing poet

and fills me with a desperate longing
to be intimate with one who is so
connected to the source of creation.