Ode to Marriage

AN ODE TO MARRIAGE

M A T E S

The ionospheric levels
of our communication,
and the nadir of our love
fascinates me.
How can you know
things about me
that I am still discovering
myself ?
How can you find such intense joy
in just being with me ?
I mean,
you touch me as if
you have always been
touching me;
as if all the others
never happened.

Thank God,
as we met,
we recognized each other.
You were not just another
interesting woman,
you were
my woman;
had always been
my woman.

Truth streaked across the face
of the millennium,
crackling
like a Texas lightning bolt,
silver brilliant
against a midnight sky.
Frozen in that moment,
two people in a blaze of light,
we stood baffled,
and still had to learn
that no matter how much we twisted
and pulled away,
we were still stone-captured,
coupled cosmically,
just steel shavings inexorably drawn
to magnetic tips,
maneuvering into alignment
on a parallel plane.

On this day,
the north and the south
drew closer,
until finally we touched,
were joined,
and became one entity;
our souls in lock-step,
a completely new organism,
man and wife
united
against the harshness of this world;
comingled, mixed, blended, and blessed;
ready to contribute
what's left of our little lives
to the children,
and to each other.

Glenn Buttkus 1993