WHAT GOES ON
After the affair and the moving out,
after the destructive revivifying passion,
we watched her life quiet
into a new one, her lover more and more
on its periphery. She spent many nights
alone, happy for the narcosis
of the television. When she got cancer
she kept it to herself until she couldn’t
keep it from anyone. The chemo debilitated
and saved her, and one day
her husband asked her to come back —
his wife, who after all had only fallen
in love as anyone might
who hadn’t been in love in a while —
and he held her, so different now,
so thin, her hair just partially
grown back. He held her like a new woman
and what she felt
felt almost as good as love had,
and each of them called it love
because precision didn’t matter anymore.
And we who’d been part of it,
often rejoicing with one
and consoling the other,
we who had seen her truly alive
and then merely alive,
what could we do but revise
our phone book, our hearts,
offer a little toast to what goes on.
-Stephen Dunn
Gladsome Lights 
This is quite a different posting from the prior posting about your granddaughter’s beautiful, magical wedding. Part of it could be that there is love but not LOVE invoked in the second poem’s relationship although the forgiveness of the ex-husband works towards the divine command to forgive even in such grievous circumstances. The presence of Christ in a marriage can cover over a multitude of sins, but still some Christian marriages don’t last for reasons varied and complex Likewise as Romans 2:11-18 says ” For when the Gentiles which have not the law do by nature the things contained in the law, these having not the law are a law unto themselves” We have a seed of God within us even if it is only subconscious. Anyway I pray that Christ will reign in your granddaughter’s and grandson-in-law’s marriage and it will go the distance through thick and thin. God bless.
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Thank you, Cathy. My granddaughter and her husband are building on a rich legacy, and on the Rock, so their path looks promising. I also pray that they would continue to pursue Him who is LOVE.
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Another poem with a story. It made me think of a similar story. A dear friend’s sister divorced her abusive husband once the children were grown. When she found out that he had cancer and needed help she moved back in and cared for him until he died.
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Thank you for sharing that, GM ❤
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