A Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments; love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with remover to remove.

O no, it an ever-fixed mark 5

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wand’ring bark

Whose worth’s unknown, although his height to be taken.

Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle’s compass come; 10

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even in the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

A The Presence

Though not sensible I feel we are married still.
After four years survival guilt endures.
I should have said this, could have done that,
and your absent presence has left a weeping scar.
Like a heartbeat, you are indispensable. 5

Each year, I think, the cries of the dead retreat,
become smaller, small. Now your nearness is far
and sometimes I sense you’re hardly there at all.
When in company, when my smiles persist,
your distance briefly is like the furthest star. 10

It’s when I’m most myself, most alone
with all the clamour of my senses dumb,
then, in the confusion of Time’s deletion
by Eternity, I welcome you and you return
improbably close, though of course you cannot come. 15