I Must Accept but Can't What Cannot Be

Music: Serenade for Strings.
By Antonin Dvorak.
Performed by The Advent Chamber Orchestra at the Free Music Archive
under a Creative Commons Attribution/ShareAlike license.

Subscribe to this site on Substack

Subscribe to this site on YouTube

Subscribe to this site on Medium

Follow this site on Facebook

Follow this site on Instagram

Hear me read
the poem as
an MP3 file.

Watch me read
the poem as
a YouTube video.

Alpha List

Love Poems

Sad Poems

Villanelles

About This
Site

Poems for
Free

Copyright by
Nicholas Gordon

I must accept but can't what cannot be.
I see you and my heart dissolves in pain.
You are not dead, but you are dead to me.

What happened to our love's a mystery.
I rummage through our empty past in vain.
I must accept but can't what cannot be:

That someone else now shares your off-hand "we,"
Now feels your tender tongue all feeling drain . . .
You are not dead, but you are dead to me.

I cannot lay aside my agony:
Again, again I play the same refrain.
I must accept but can't what cannot be.

And yet I know this tortured ecstasy
Is just my way of holding you again.
You are not dead, but you are dead to me,

And still I cannot bear to set you free,
That of our love some remnant might remain.
I must accept but can't what cannot be.
You are not dead, but you are dead to me.

Copyright by Nicholas Gordon. Free for personal or non-commercial use.

[about this site] [poems for free] [poem of the week]
[site policy] [about me] [ links]