Tuesday, May 1, 2012

An anniversary poem for the husband of an extraterrestrial!


Ana Darcy's husband Matt, being an English major, has an unsurprising taste for poetry. Recently, approximately a month before their anniversary, he ran across a poem that touched his heart.

We can only provide a link to a copyrighted work, but we can say that except for the ocean mentioned (there are no oceans anywhere close to southern New Mexico) there was much in it to remind him that his sweet wife had traveled trillions of miles from her home planet to get to Earth, and to their house. 

What in the poem spoke to him?

"I climbed / the stairs to the roof of the house and under a sky / strewn with stars I gazed...and I imagined you coming closer...."

and

 "The nearness, the momentary warmth of you...why did I believe you would come out of nowhere?"

He can never forget the last line, "Why with all / that the world offers would you come only because I was here?"

After years of marriage, Matt still can't understand why this glorious woman should have chosen him, of all the people on Earth, to love. His only guess: it was a miracle.

The poem is "Black Sea," by Mark Strand. The story of the meeting and courtship of Ana and Matt is told in Distant Cousin.

Note (2017): The link above has been closed. The very fine poem, however, can still be found using a workaround. Please see this suggestion!



See more of Ana's favorite poetry, recipes, and art in the columns to the right




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