Memento Amoris
Two fossil flies, still mated, found in amber:
Like Nature planted a poetic conceit;
Both cloistered till Doom in their golden chamber,
With one well-wrought bond, a nexus compleat.
There long before that bee in amber tomb
Sparked beamish Martial to imagine it
Interred by Fate in its own honey-comb,
Or in frozen tears of nymphs—et luxit!
Afore Herrick mused that one bug thus caught
Had grave richer than Egypt’s mighty pharaohs;
Ere Sor Juana, a gleam-bright mayfly thought
Her sister phoenix: two fire-forged heroes.
Ah, our ephemeral lives fly by fast,
But still we dream our love’s in amber cast.
By Michael A. Winkelman
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