Ah, the blessed hour between the time I wake up and the rest of the house slips free of sleep.
Quiet. Peace. A chance to read, to write, to meditate, to pray, and — a wonder! — not just hold back entropy, but to make a little progress against it. Worship by making breakfast tacos and picking up stray toys. The solitary liturgy of care for myself and others yet dreaming.
I do not want most of my hours to be this one, but am silently, deeply grateful for this time when it comes.
A Pragmatist’s Love Song
I have not fallen in love with you,
as if love were a puddle into which one trips
by accident, and from which one might stumble just as easily.I am not mad about you,
our love a confused and screaming Bedlam,
filled with unreal fears and phantasms that don’t know truth.You have not captured my heart,
as if it were a frightened animal that one can snare
and cage but which always longs for the solitary forest.You are neither my northern star,
my sun nor my moon, for one cannot set another’s path
or illumine his world.Our love is not eternal,
but will one day be completed
when we finally meet Love face to face.But you are my wife. I choose to take your hand and walk through our years together. I will lean on you when I stumble, and support you when you are tired. I will stand by you when the last of the children marches off to make her own life, and will hold you when you cry. I am on your side when you’re a saint and when you’re a shrew. I will cheer for you, play with you, support your adventures, listen to your fears, rejoice with your victories, mourn with your losses, hope and pray with you, and always be your friend. I love you.
Presented to Kathy on the occasion of her 33rd birthday. Many thanks to Daniel Priest, my one-man writer’s workshop.
We had a Christmas/Liam’s Birthday/Kathy’s Birthday party yesterday evening at our home. I had decided this year that, instead of buying Kathy a present, I would write her a poem reflecting something of the admiration I have for the work she does as a Mom and a wife. Here it is:
She dances in the kitchen’s light,
Most fair of beauties given me;
Goes on to sketch a picture bright
With hope of One Day’s crystal sea.She hews from youth’s misshapen stone
Fair forms of children, eager-eyed,
And writes the play in flesh and bone
Of years devoted, years denied.Her poetry: from chaos, form;
A home made up of verse and rhyme
Well-kept with artful fingers, warm
With creativity and time.Yet most remarkable of all
Her artist’s brush transforms my soul.
A model full of spite and gall —
She paints it, yet, as beautiful.