(an exercise on Shakespearean sonnet)

O Sarajevo, I first fell in love

When you were a ballerina on ice,

Skating in style atop a glacial slope,

Dispensing many an Olympic prize.

Then darker feuds had all rules swept aside.

I lost touch; turned to tend my garden rack.

You became concubine of genocide,

Brains dashed and skulls spiked on your virgin tracks.

I too grew bleary, weak in knees; endured

Dreary sunsets, then drearier rises.

But to fair Sarajevo will be due

My love always, and a thousand roses.

A fragile bud that shot through fire and blood

Now stands a golden bough in the twilight flood.

Tommy Cho

Information Services Office