On our Twentieth Anniversary
(more or less)
I do not cleave only unto him and so
some have thought this love a lightsome thing.
(It does not help that neither wears a ring.)
In truth, I sometimes wish that he would go --
-- inevitable, that single souls should grate
when year piles onto year until they blur.
I might forget the joyful souls we were,
and why I chose this one to be my mate.
If lightsome be, let that mean 'full of light'
lighter than air, and flying, is my heart.
And the thought that someday he and I must part
is pestilence, pollution, rot and blight.
Twenty years I chose him, day by yes;
sixty more I'd wish for, more or less.
I get why the audience applauded. It is beautiful.
Day by yes? Was that a placeholde/filler that became permanent? It reminds me of the famous “scrambled eggs” nonsense lyrics McCartney had for “Yesterday”.
No, it’s intentional. In part an homage to one of my favorite e.e. cummings poems, “anyone lived in a pretty how town”, which has the phrase ‘if by yes’: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15403
But also for the idea of a romantic relationship being something you say yes to on a daily basis. 🙂
OK, if it is OK to pick apart the fine points, why did you write “I do not cleave…” instead of “I cleave not…” since the second phrase would make the first line in perfect iambic pentameter
I think it would have felt too intensely archaic then, esp. with the ‘cleave unto’ — I wanted a contemporary balance to that language.