A well-crafted poem is a beautiful thing,
much like the ink with which it is written;
the words can be made to shout or to sing
of anger and loss or the orator smitten.

And the ink can become any wondrous thought,
if only the quill can be used to shape prose;
whether letter or poem, the idea is caught
and conveyed in a form either brief or verbose.

The problem with ink, as the problem with prose,
is that shapes can be formed by a myriad gazes -
what I see as these, you see as those,
and meanings can spread like well-tended blazes.

Dear reader, take heart, and ask me not why -
let what I've said here be your next cue:
though beauty doth lie in the beholder's eye,
not every poem I write's about you.

(In truth, I know not to whom this I send,
though hope I that we might still yet make amends.)

Penned by my hand on the 2nd of Ero, in the year 999 AF.