not that i think donne was right. not, at any rate, about caring less eyes lips hands to miss. physical presence is terribly important - perhaps more important than we want to believe - for any of us can live in contentment and affection and habitude together - without necessarily experiencing that "close contact of naked minds" - but for all the seas of passion pounding in our veins - the emptiness of separation would destroy one, if not both, of us. no, the body isn't more important than the mind, and it is not that those things which elemented love are only physical, but which of us can deny the body who has woken in the night grasping at no one and wondering how the bed can gape so empty. interassured of the mind? of course you want that too, but on its own it isn't a higher or purer form of love, but an inferior form. not to know the pleasure, the intimacy - of shared space and entwined bodies - that - is no love, only ideals. if it is only the small synchronisms of life together - of being able to do the dishes together, to nap on a rainy day, to stroke a lock of hair playfully. fancy's engendered in these little acts. in "the end of the affair" sarah tells herself that : "love doesn't end just because we don't see each other." it doesn't, but it doesn't live either. but - if we must part - if we must - then the momentousness of the parting is at least assauged a little - then that's when donne's any consolation. to know that - on different ends of the world - we held each other's heart.