Now and Forever: A Marrying Poem (for my wife)

.

i looked at her

she reminded me

forever begins now

 .

in a letter

comes a present

i receive

 .

from her

from my past:

 .

“my forever is beginning”

 .

i had said

when she came

 .

i look at her

she reminds me

forever began now

 .

October 2010

January of ‘14

still forever,

still beginning

 .

forever is never

absolute

but it’s relate-ive

 .

in other words –

“as long as” –

“i” holds together,

also “you,” and then “we”

 .

i look at you

the seeing re-minds

the hearing and touch

the tasting and smell

of forever,

and now

Longuage

We stitch.  We wend.  The warp and woof (or weft).

We wept.

And made language.

 .

Because beauty.*

 .

If occasion is beautiful, we long –

Longuage.

Longing will depress

[equal and opposite force]

therefore, express.

 .

We cry.  Sigh and stutter.  Susurrate.

We long:  Compress.  Express.

And make longuage.

 .

“A thought leaves no print; leaves only the print of word in ink on page.”

–Dan Beachy-Quick

.

Without regard for Truth.

Aching willn’t analyze.

 .

Fact fail.

Re-memory.

 .

We perceive the beauty and we hurt

and know not what to name it –

object, emotion, experience,

response.

 .

Falter, wend,

Weave and prove,

Longuage.

 .

N Filbert 2014

*I consider the “beautiful” the ‘total matrix’ of experience, i.e. some sense of a whole

 

by J. Celan Smith
Images by Melissa D. Johnston

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