Lament: Sweetest Love, I Go (April Challenge 15)

Prompt: take the title of a poem you like,
change it and write a new poem.

“Sweetest love,” wrote Donne,
“I do not go,
For weariness of thee,
Nor in hope the world can show
A fitter love for me;”

and I spoke that often
in silence in my heart
to a man I went from,
after I went,
believing it true.

That was twenty-seven years ago
and the world has shown me
loves that are surely fitter,
and in their own ways
no less sweet.

What sweetness could there be
loving a man in prison?
And it was not fit.
I was married
with young children.

And so I left.
Months later, so did he.
It was no “feigned death”.
I spent that night, though ignorant,
inexplicably in tears;

and through my mind
the words repeated:
“Sweetest love, I do not go,
for weariness of thee…”
Next day I learned.

Did he reach for me
in loving thought,
to tell me that his choice
had other reasons?
I believe he did.

And every love is fit
and every love is sweet.
That blinding smile,
that husky voice….
Donne’s “Song” is my Lament.