Twenty years ago today, on February 8th, 1994, Oklahoma was having a brutal sleet storm. We almost wrecked driving to the county courthouse, where we had told friends and relatives not to endanger their lives by trying to join us. While the bitter, ice-pellet wind blew through my cotton skirt and blouse, my husband held my elbow walking up the millions of steps, all rimed with a skin of black ice despite salt and shovels, or I would have fallen in my unaccustomed high heels. Rather a metaphor there, if you're into such things..
There was no one there that day except the judge and two strangers to witness our marriage, but I don't think either of us felt any lack--it was the culmination of two years of enduring, for my husband, a vicious divorce where every possible hurtful thing involving money, possessions, reputation and children that could have been done by his ex was, and the end of six years of a difficult stint full of poverty, non-stop work and stress as a single mother for me. I will never forget how many sacrifices my husband made to be with me, or how he has enriched and stabilized my life.
I seldom write about the man, as he is not into poetry,and, for me, happiness is not the place where I find my writing. Although I did get him to read and enjoy an entire Wendell Berry volume once, he has never read a word of mine, like most human beings on this planet ;_)-- but below is a poem I wrote a few years back for him, called Greybeard:
Greybeard
The wind is from the west and blows the storm.
You’re grey in my thoughts,
blown across sky, my very grey matter,
puffed far like a cloud from a smoldering pipe,
blown quick as the cunning flight of grey doves
who understand the shadow of the hawk, cloud pale
with the cottony softness of mare's tails
flying above waves to veil the sun’s glare
with the cottony softness of mare's tails
flying above waves to veil the sun’s glare
when the sea is finished with drama,
content to be softened,
content to be softened,
washing living and dead in its slow endless pulse.
You’ve lost all the red
angry words, the ice-white silences
long ago. Your soft rumble stirs oatmeal-smooth,
the purr of plump cats by hearth-fire
dozing near the embers.
dozing near the embers.
Your voice is a lullaby, secret
and tender as a ruffled wren with a ruby glass heart,
clear as the night sky swinging her moonshot skirts,
pink mother of pearl, with the round moon daughter
on her opalescent cushions gently turning the bowl of sky
to prism the earth with silver light.
You and I danced for for so long
circling our lives, wrapping the bands around the maypole,
weaving the yarns of years to make the tale
we now tell together, of two journeys
that became one traveling,
filled with the scarlet clamor of blood,
filled with the scarlet clamor of blood,
the black and purple bruises of grief,
across a mad planet to a place of moss and stone
where dancers can rest, and journey can end
with the grey hairs of wisewomen and white
beards of wizards nodding together.
~January 2010
