Category Archives: love

What Goes On.

love, poetry,

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

I have been to the wedding.

family, love, travel,

Last week was my granddaughter’s wedding, and a glorious event it was. Christ was honored and thanked and adored. Two families were joined, and I was happy to be there as one of the several grandmas (there were grandpas as well) whose grandchildren were pledging their lives to one another.

I flew to Wisconsin a couple of days before the celebration, and was mostly at my daughter Pearl’s place, not far from Milwaukee and Lake Michigan. My great-granddaughter Lora was in town with her family for nearly as long as I, which was sweet. All of Maggie’s brothers and their wives were present, and I was in awe of how everyone has grown up, and how God has poured His Life out on us. He is the Love Who is sustaining us through our various heartaches and trials, so that we can have joy in the midst of them, and rejoice with Maggie and her husband (I forgot to pick a nickname for him, but I will work on that soon.)

Lora and her Grandma

The venue was a farm, with a big house where all the wedding party could prepare, for the ceremony and reception that were outdoors on wide lawns, with apple trees all around. We were under the sun for the ceremony, and under awnings for a meal and dancing. The weather was warm and humid.

Getting ready took a long time! I hung around the spaces where the bride and bridesmaids were getting their hair and dresses and everything the way they liked, and was able to be of help once or twice with a safety pin or an opinion. The host of the venue contributed by being the cobbler for the girls.

Because Maggie is the first (and only) daughter of my own first daughter, feelings and memories of Pearl’s wedding almost thirty years ago filled my mind throughout the evening. After dusk, while some people were dancing, and the bride played chase with the flower girl on the green lawn, a gibbous moon rose above the horizon, and continued to rise and brighten the landscape for the rest of the night. For hours dry lightning flashed in the clouds above, while we listened to heartwarming speeches, such as by the bride and groom about their praiseworthy parents ❤ Everyone was in love with love, and Love.

Congratulations to the newly married, blessed by God.

This is the way to enter and leave.

love, poetry, women, ,

WHAT IS OUR DEEPEST DESIRE?

To be held this way in our mother’s arms,
to be nestled deep in the warmth
of her body, her gaze,
to be adored, to overwhelm her
with our sweetness.
This is what we seek in chocolate,
in the food and drink and drugs
that stun the senses, that fill the veins
with the rich cream of well being.
What we take for lust—can it be, perhaps,
a heavy pang of longing to be swaddled,
close, close to the heartbeat of our mother?
No bucket seats, Jacuzzi, or even a lover’s embrace
can duplicate this luxuriance,
this centered place on the roiling planet.

When the old woman, small and light,
can be carried in the arms of her son,
he, at first, holds her tentatively,
a foreign doll,
but gradually, as the pool loses its ripples,
he sees his face in hers
and draws her to him,
rocking to the rhythm of her breathing.
This is the way to enter and leave the world.

-Miriam Pederson

Pablo Picasso, Mother and Son on the Shore

 

Sit down and taste.

love, poetry

Malcolm Guite alerted me to the fact that this is the date that the Church of England remembers George Herbert. (As I write, that day has passed for many of you.) He posted his sonnet for the occasion, but I am re-posting from a few years back a poem from Herbert himself. Once my late husband gave me a collection of Herbert’s poetry, and it just occurs to me that I might add that to my stack of Lenten reading, to fill out the poetry genre of the group.

Someone has said that to fast, in the Christian tradition, is to feast with the angels. I think that must be something like the feast Herbert is referring to here:

LOVE

Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back
                              Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
                             From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
                             If I lacked any thing.
A guest, I answered, worthy to be here:
                             Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
                             I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
                             Who made the eyes but I?
Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame
                             Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?
                             My dear, then I will serve.
You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:
                             So I did sit and eat.

–George Herbert

George Herbert niche at Salisbury Cathedral