The Mardi Gras of Miss M

THE MARDI GRAS OF MISS M


14 years, my darling, 14 wonderful years
Of loving,
Of sharing
Each other’s burdens;
Of smiles and miles
On rambunctious road trips
Beneath starlit desert skies spreading
Across Southwestern plateaus;
Of shimmering beauty
As I stare like a lad
At you daily, and
At red rock arches and towers,
Badlands and verdant valleys,
Pueblos and hogans
Carved fetchingly out of solid white sandstone;
Mortared with shaggy sod,
Moistened with tears,
Laced with laughter,
Sanctioned with suffering, as well as
At canyons
So dizzyingly deep,
Girded with muscular cliffs,
With bottoms so many miles distant
Their substance morphs into shadow—
Much like your heart
And the absolute authenticity of your affection;
Depths beyond fathoms, beyond measure, God,
Beyond imagination.

Thank-you for being my wife,
And may you always rejoice
In your own sweet perseverance while
Holding my hand
As we gleefully travel
Across the wide map of our lives;
Illustrating that our mere
Togetherness
Will continue to create many more decades of conjugal bliss;
That the tensile strength of our emotional foundation
Will become the stanchion
Of a magnificent and personal parapet,
So strong and so tall
That it will easily cast a wide warm shadow
Clear across the shoulders of the land;
And may the intensity of our love
Continue to be self-nurturing
So that it will blossom like ivy
And grow like a hedge full of wild flowers,
Until it has such validity
And such density
It will form itself into one of those velvet foothills
Beneath our beloved mountains.

Somehow, my child bride,
You bewitch me,
And cloud my sarcastic eyes until
This old man peers happily through
A lover’s gossamer veil
At his wife
And his friend;
And as I sit watching you
Performing the many small duties within your day,
I am allowed to actually see
The brilliant loveliness of your aura,
And the vibrant hues of your love.
You know, dear one,
I think of you when we are apart.
I stare at you while we are together,
Sometimes as two, and sometimes
As one,
And I very often dream
Of you midst my slumber;
Always awakening wet with your kisses
On my soul.

Today we celebrate
The anniversary of our nuptials,
As we should, of course,
But tomorrow we will continue
To celebrate
The richness of our relationship,
The honesty of our communication,
Our faithfulness and fidelity,
And our unbridled passion.

In some way miraculous,
I am today fully aware
What a lucky man I am
To have you
Call me husband.
So hey, hang on tight, honey –
The good stuff
Awaits just around the bend
Within the silken bosom of sunrises
Yet to come.

Glenn A. Buttkus April 3, 2007