“I am two fools, I know; one for loving, and for saying so”

- John Donne

I wrote love letters once to a lady fair

And I thought she threw them all away

When I moved on, and so did she

And then one fateful summer day

An envelope with her perfume

Brought consternation to my door

She was writing me, who had written her

To say she was unattached once more

And padding through the empty halls

To an attic in a broken home

She found glassines she had packed away

With all my letters and my poems  

The ones I once thought holy; dear;

The ones I thought were burned away

I found her company again

And we sat and spent near half a day

Re-reading words in a torrent I

Spilled hotly on the paper there

But so many years and lives ago

I wasn’t sure  I really cared

That I had showered once upon her face

My kisses, and love upon her heart

We had sundered all acquaintances

And only had this ragged part

Of the past to remind I once had soared

And left my feelings throbbing; raw;

Now it just seemed like an embarrassment

And I stopped and put them to the floor

Remembering Donne in the silence there

Remembering now what I did not then

How lives and fortunes rudely change

And how it could not be again

I sadly kissed the lady’s cheek

And thought of things that couldn’t be

But wonder in these ensuing years

If she still has kept that part of me.

01/12/2003

Author's Note: Some tales are woven from the cloth of imagination, but some from the cloth of life...

Posted on 01/12/2003
Copyright © 2025 Ken Harnisch