Who Cares? Poem by David Lewis Paget

What ever happens when a love goes wrong
When a love goes wrong some morning,
Goes wrong like the singer of a blackbird song
That a blackbird's not been born in?
Lost like the flutter of a butterfly's flight
In the wild south wind's clash-clatter,
Or a heartbeat stopped as an oak tree's lopped;
Who cares?
Why? What does it matter?

What ever happens to a love-lost love
To a love-lost love, come Autumn,
Or a bare beech, birch, or a grey stone church
Or the leaves that the birch tree brought them;
To walk in the shelter of a shaded lane
With the last of the lost love's chatter,
Like the half of a whole, or a lonely soul,
Who cares?
Why? What does it matter?

What ever happens to the other one - you
To the other you, half a love lonely,
Do you care, do you weep, do you rest, do you sleep
When you love alone, loving me only?
Will you heave some sigh in your memory's eye
For the scenes of our springtime laughter,
Or burn some flame to erase my name...
Who cares?
Why? What does it matter?

11 December 1975