These poems have been years in the making. As I explained before, they started as a challenge: write one love poem a day based on the I Ching. They were posted as I went along on facebook. I was single and imagined it would add to my masculine mystique, attract the right kind of woman. Each took me about a couple of hours to finish. I didn't revisit them. Not until a couple of years ago (about five years after they'd been written) that I had a need to transcribe them. I had thought I would just retype them, but, I couldn't help myself. I changed them to match the voice I'd developed through the original exercise. What began as wildly experimental, slowly focused into a... style. Many were rewritten, only a few were flat-out thrown out. I took my time. Worked and reworked them until this, what I am currently posting. I am pretty sure they are finished finally. None has made me want to change anything. They are perfect. They perform their function perfectly. I really really love them. And I am aware how gauche it sounds when I say it, but, I have to be honest: They delight me. Not because I wrote them, but rather, because someone did who obviously knows my taste. Related: I am also my favorite cook.
So, at least to me, these are favored. 23 is the most famous hexagram from the I Ching thanks to Yeats, and the other poem, Sun - 1975, is one of my most straightforwardly romantic poems. One is an end, the other an endless moment.
By the way, it DID work. She would read my poems. Follow along. Ended up marrying me. We have 3 beautiful daughters, a four-year-old and two two-year-olds (Irish twins).