My favorite store-bought chocolate is Chocolove. Most nights I have a square or two of their dark chocolate Sea Salt & Almond bar. Last night, as I put the outer wrapper aside to recycle, I noticed there was a poem inside. I read it and thought it was really good. It sunk in that I had been opening these chocolate bars for several years and had never noticed that there was a poem inside. I was dumbfounded. My only explanation is that I usually must not be wearing my reading glasses and I just saw blurred letters and thought it was a list of ingredients.
Eventually, after several readings, I noticed that the poem ended with a comma. Hmmm, must not be the end of the poem. So I looked it up and the beginning is not the beginning either. I think it can stand alone as is. Love’s Progress was considered scandalous back in the 1600’s and it’s a bit racy even today. A gift of poetic truth from John Donne.
Postscript: I’ve been through a few more bars and they all have the same words of John Donne. I guess I’ll have to look up his work on my own and not wait until more of his words are printed on a chocolate bar wrapper. I must say I enjoyed reading about love’s progress while chocolate slowly melted in my mouth.