A Valediction Forbidding Mourning Re-Donne

When I first read John Donne as a young girl
I thought him largely a creative reprobate
with that poem about a flea
as his plea
for pre-marital sex.

And in his Valediction Forbidding Mourning,
when he compared two souls
to twin stiff compasses,
one growing erect as the other came home,
I just couldn’t get past my adolescent hormones
to apply much of a deeper reading.

But now, in truth, I see I missed the larger meaning of Donne,
and, honestly, a compass now seems
the perfect symbol for us,
but not Donne’s compass of mathematical angles.
No, a compass of a different sort seems more fitting.
Instead, you are my magnetic compass of direction,
and I, the chronic wanderer.

Often, I shake the needle
to point in all different directions.
I never seem to keep my bearings straight.
My eyes are frequently unfocused on what is ahead.
I change course and mind a thousand times a day.

But I always feel like I am
going somewhere with you
and when lost, you remind me
of where I am
and gently pull me the direction
I want to go.
Even if that destination frightens me
all the more because of you.
Even if that direction makes me sometimes mourn.

The North Star is where the arrow always points,
and the journey always points to the same end.
And, yes, we should forbid mourning.
And, yes, we should forbid fear.
Loving you makes me need to believe.
It is as simple and complex as that.

So, I say, may we forbid sadness.
May we end where we began.
An end, not a breach, but an expansion,
an end, not a loss, but a gain.

Yet, then again, why not
work for it?
Why not
like gold
be we
to airy thinness
beat?