{"id":923,"date":"2007-10-12T00:40:21","date_gmt":"2007-10-12T06:40:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=923"},"modified":"2007-10-12T00:41:11","modified_gmt":"2007-10-12T06:41:11","slug":"poetry-friday-marriage-as-seen-by-meand-marge-piercy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=923","title":{"rendered":"Poetry Friday: Marriage, as seen by me<\/br>(and Marge Piercy)"},"content":{"rendered":"

no, that\u2019s not usI’ve had marriage on my mind lately. B. and I are attending two weddings this weekend. And our own eight-year anniversary is coming up. No, seriously. Eight years<\/em>. And we started dating six years before that, so we’ve been together over a third of our lives. It always gives me pause when I think about it in those terms. How much have we shaped each other, been cultivated by each other into the adults we’ve become? Who would I be now if I’d never met him?<\/p>\n

I also spent time recently with a widow around my own age. And Grace Lin has just started blogging again<\/strong><\/a>, after the loss of her husband. And when my aunt passed away<\/strong><\/a> in March, she left behind my uncle, her high school sweetheart and husband of 30+ years. I look at these people and think, could I do it? Could I build a new life on my own, if B. were taken away from me? Could I be that strong? Who would I become then?<\/p>\n

I don’t know. I really just don’t know. I mean, sure, marriage is hard, and people always tell you that before you get married but you just don’t know how hard<\/em> until you’re in it. When you get married, your vows should go something like “I promise that no matter how I grow and change and evolve as a person, I’ll keep myself in synch with you while you undergo your own individual growth and evolution.” Not very poetic. But I didn’t marry my husband because I expected a non-stop romantic-movie montage sort of life. I married him because I think I’m a better person with him than without him. We don’t always agree, we often get on each other’s nerves, sometimes we flat out don’t get<\/em> each other. But he’s so much a part of me now, he’s family<\/em>, and if something happened to him I can’t even imagine the hole that would leave in the universe.<\/p>\n

So, here’s a love poem, in tribute to my husband, and to everone else who’s ever been crazy-brave enough to marry somebody.<\/p>\n

from “Colors passing through us”<\/strong><\/a> by Marge Piercy<\/strong><\/a>:<\/p>\n

Here is my bouquet, here is a sing
\nsong of all the things you make
\nme think of, here is oblique
\npraise for the height and depth
\nof you and the width too.
\nHere is my box of new crayons at your feet. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the rest here<\/strong>.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve had marriage on my mind lately. B. and I are attending two weddings this weekend. And our own eight-year anniversary is coming up. No, seriously. Eight years. And we started dating six years before that, so we’ve been together over a third of our lives. It always gives me pause when I think about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry-friday"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/923\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}