THE PROMISE

I promise you though
that from the day on
I will be gone
no one will get to hear from
me for ever after.

As you have already heard me swear
after the day I will have I left her
no trace of my ways
may be found in spare
when or wherever.

From the distances I will have got
I pledge not to come back again,
be it in your remembrance,
be it in my own presence, beyond
any of my canniest second thoughts.

By then possibly no one could
have ever been warned for good
about what I did or should
before the day and after
I had gone and walked on her.

The day I will go, I must be gone
as I had never gone before,
for that day on I will have sworn
for once and all that I shall no more
pack and swear and beg her.