We've always loved Robert Frost's poem "Directive" and its first line's spare (honest, meager) framework ("back out of all this now too much for us")--upon which the poem below builds, remembering how God carries us.
Valentine, 2010
Beyond your eyes, graced green
and dazzling beyond all spectrums,
comfort comes (in your words, in your laughter) and always, always,
kindness cascades through your love--too, too
often ignored, assumed, a luxury always lavished
upon this family, this man,
this lustrous life we have together. Magnificence,
opulence like this--how were we so blessed?--our prayers
festooned this love from the get-go: garlands of gladsome
amens, heartsick sighs, woeful worries, hushed hallelujahs.
Let's two together remember our only hope (from the beginning
lifting us when we were leveled, afflicted, careless)--that nothing
thoroughly planned out, not the most beneficent strategy
had much success apart from the Love that carried us
in far stronger arms always, always.
So my darling--whose beauty, voice, and grace glances
now like light against everything in my world (my dreams,
our talk, this family, our prayers)--here's praise for you,
winnowing beauty somehow from even drab, shabby days,
tenderly easing children's hurts, bearing more than beauty
ought to bear--carrying, being carried--always, always.
One time long ago we sang out full-throated hymns to heaven's
music and mercy--we danced for a moment--we yearned, yearned together
upon a crag in a seaside meadow, laughing heavenward that night and
chattering from a chalice of hope, uncertain the days ahead.
How I love you, I said: your eyes, your voice. How I love you
forever now I say: a friend fashioned like no other, no
other--a mystery to me even now, brimming with delight and laughter,
radiant, heartening--your breath twinned to my breath, hopes pinned
upon each other's hope in a Strength carrying us together,
singing love songs, lullabies, victory hymns forever, forever.
