‘Poem of my Husband’

The Marriage Bed

My husband of two decades is a quiet man, not given to emotional displays.  When he uttered these words that began the poem,   I knew something was out of the ordinary.   I wondered what he was thinking.   Our marriage was secure, our life together not dull.  I realized one can never completely fathom what is going on with another, even in marriage.

He is of German stock and rather traditional in views of marriage. For years we did not have a ‘marriage bed’, (his term)  or more than a few attempts at this, and all cast off as ‘unacceptable’.  He bought two ‘overdoors’ years ago, and as an excellent carpenter, he was going to make this all important marriage bed.  They were great big things and they would look good as overdoors, and that is where they ended. One at the formal front door, and another made into a mantel.  We still didn’t have his marriage bed.

Until this past Valentine’s Day.  We bought a Rice bed.  It was so high he had to make steps for me.  For a couple of weeks he, being a tall man, would get in first and then drag me over the bed. If he wasn’t there, I would have to take a running leap.  I still can’t sleep in this bed comfortably, feeling  if I fall out  I will break something.

He is contented, finally having his all-important Marriage Bed. He sleeps and snores like a happy man.  I sleep with one eye open, moving away from the edge, spooning tightly to him, but perhaps this is the way of marriage.

Lady Nyo

–

POEM OF MY HUSBAND

–

“You’re all I have”

Heard in the dark

Heart almost stopping

In an inattentive breast.

–

I dare not look at him

Too bald a sentiment

And too true to bear

A light, comforting answer.

–

What would occasion such words,

Such a piteous sentiment?

–

When one has lived

Within another’s hours, days, years,

The fabric of this making

Can be frayed.

The warp and weave, the very thread

That appears as if out of air

(and it does)

becomes substantial.

It covers and clothes more than the body

and the life blood of sentiment,

Love-

Becomes the river within, unending,

Even transcending the pulse of life.

–

“You’re all I have,”

A whispered refrain

Echoing  in the heart

And burrowing deep.

–

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2009, 2011