Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Marriage

Marriage is memory, marriage is time. ~ Joan Didion

“The point of marriage is not to create a quick commonality by tearing down all boundaries; on the contrary, a good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of his solitude . . . . ”  ― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

“In itself, homosexuality is as limiting as heterosexuality: the ideal should be to be capable of loving a woman or a man; either, a human being, without feeling fear, restraint, or obligation.” 
― Simone de Beauvoir

Midweek Motif ~ Marriage

Love and marriage

Love and marriage

Go together like a horse and carriage . . . .

And then what happens??

Your Challenge: Marry your truths about marriage to a story in a new poem.  Enjoy!

Here's some more inspiration:

The Ache of Marriage

BY DENISE LEVERTOV

The ache of marriage:

thigh and tongue, beloved,   

are heavy with it,   

it throbs in the teeth

We look for communion

and are turned away, beloved,   

each and each

It is leviathan and we   

in its belly

looking for joy, some joy   

not to be known outside it

two by two in the ark of   

the ache of it.

Denise Levertov, “The Ache of Marriage” from Poems 1960-1967. 

Copyright © 1966 by Denise Levertov.  New Directions Publishing Corporation.

Raking

BY TANIA ROCHELLE

Anna Bell and Lane, eighty,

make small leaf piles in the heat,

each pile a great joint effort,

like fifty years of marriage,

sharing chores a rusty dance.

In my own yard, the stacks

are big as children, who scatter them,

dodge and limbo the poke

of my rake. We’re lucky,

young and straight-boned.

And I feel sorry for the couple,

bent like parentheses

around their brittle little lawn.

I like feeling sorry for them,

the tenderness of it, but only

for a moment: John glides in

like a paper airplane, takes

the children for the weekend,

and I remember,

they’re the lucky ones—

shriveled Anna Bell, loving

her crooked Lane.

Used with the poet's permission.

 Reprinted from The Poetry Foundatiom.

From Karaoke Funeral, Snake Nation Press, 2003. 

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Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others 

in the spirit of the community.

(Next week, Susan's Midweek Motif will be martyrdom / witness. )

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