April Fools

April Fools' Day or All Fools' Day is a day celebrated in various countries on April 1. The day is marked by the commission of hoaxes and other practical jokes of varying sophistication on friends, family members, enemies, and neighbors, or sending them on a fool's errand, the aim of which is to embarrass the gullible. Traditionally, in some countries, such as the UK, Australia, and South Africa the jokes only last until noon, and someone who plays a trick after noon is called an "April Fool". Elsewhere, such as in France, Ireland, Italy, South Korea, Japan, Russia, The Netherlands, Brazil, Canada, and the U.S., the jokes last all day. The earliest recorded association between April 1 and foolishness can be found in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (1392). Many writers suggest that the restoration of January 1 as New Year's Day in the 16th century was responsible for the creation of the holiday, but this theory does not explain earlier references.
In Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (1392), the "Nun's Priest's Tale" is set Syn March bigan thritty dayes and two. Chaucer probably meant 32 days after March, i.e. May 2 the anniversary of the engagement of King Richard II of England to Anne of Bohemia, which took place in 1381. However, readers apparently misunderstood this line to mean "March 32," i.e April 1. In Chaucer's tale, the vain cock Chauntecler is tricked by a fox.
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I am not a practical joker by nature. I guess I am just too afraid that, with my luck, if I did play a joke on someone, it would backfire. I had such an experience when I was in college, and the joke not only backfired, but hurt someone's feelings in the process. I never tried it again.

So my offering for April Fools Day is a sonnet that is, if anything, not a joke at all, but ironic. I guess that's just the teacher in me.

Sonnet 12
Christopher Bogart

True love does not depend on age or time.
True hearts will love when love is truly felt.
True poets do not obscure meaning with rhyme,
And winter snows in summer’s heat don’t melt.
Real beauty rarely wears a comely face,
But shines forth brightly from the soul within.
All of mankind is blind to state or race,
And glittering gold cannot compare with tin.
These truths are oft’ believed within the mind,
But it is not the mind from where love grows.
For many, lovers’ eyes are rarely blind
And so they learn the truth that Cyrano knows.
True love does not depend on human view.
Its life begins in blindness, born anew.