Freedom is a gift and curse,
When time is finite and eludes,
It leaves us many wounds to nurse
With every choice that life exudes,
Affirming one, we must deny,
The others we may have pursued
While pondering the reasons why,
We're here at all, and what it means,
With knowledge that we'll one day die
This life is wondrous, yet obscene,
Both terrifying, and serene.
The terza rima scheme was pioneered by Dante in his Divine Comedy. As you can see, the scheme works in tercets where the second line provides the rhyme for the first and third lines of the following stanza. I'm just getting my feet wet with this style, and this poem is more of an exercise. It's a tricky rhyme scheme, but I think if I spend enough time with it, I'll get it down.