Loose Sonnets

(i)

Since thus it is a separation clear
And you are incommunicado still -
Moreover, it has been well past a year
Since confrontation made our blood to chill -
Then let us shed our mourning looks at last
And smile at what is gone and cannot change,
For if we cleave to history too fast
His phantoms will our futures rearrange.
Our lives are moving now on several fronts:
For me the pen is subtler than the sword;
Though your selection fishes, shoots and hunts
Self-righteousness is ever your reward.
So let us kiss, all bitterness dissolved
And call each other friend for children's' sake;
Although our difference is unresolved
We would not wish each other's lives to take.
But if you find offence at this brief note
I would your silence seizes up your throat.

(i)

Alas, my message was, I fear, too rude:
My pain is more pronounced than I foresaw.
Methought had passed a gen'rous interlude
Since words made anger keen and passions raw.
I pray you will forgive me my conceit;
Mayhap at last I'll bury what has gone.
T'would be indeed a scurrilous deceit
To leave you thinking that I had moved on.
So though my passion is by no means spent
I pray I may acquire your dignity,
Tho' god forbid you think that I relent
And take back words that flowed so true from me.
Yet, even now my feelings thus unfurl'd,
I would not take your place for all the world.

(i)

Thus, to conclude - my correspondence done -
Tho' I shall miss this transport of our wit;
Indeed the pleasure's barely e'en begun;
But I have tales to tell and rhymes to fit.
And as I leave I aim to reassure:
If you should find yourself in future days
On moral ground that feels much less secure
And long to make amends for wicked ways,
Then you will find forgiveness on this side
And softer hearts will welcome your remorse;
I cannot swear the door will open wide:
The locks have changed withal since our divorce.
But I confess, for you I don't foresee
An imminent attack of honesty.