They will not write
about how, every
night in sleep,
somehow my hand
found your hand,
or how, before dinner
each night we light
candles and then
say something kind
before we eat.
They will not mention
how you would do
dishes for me and I
would do dishes for you,
nor how I never once
needed to ask you
to wax my skis
because it was
already done.
But more than any
title or degree,
these daily moments
are what shape a life—
these moments that
make us, these moments
that no one else sees.
Posts Tagged ‘long marriage’
In My Obituary
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daily life, long marriage, moments, obituary on January 17, 2026| 8 Comments »
Thirty Years Later
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged long marriage, wedding anniversary, wordless on October 20, 2025| 19 Comments »
His hair is white now and hers
streaked with gray. Their skin,
once taut and smooth now loosened.
But their hands still fit the other’s,
the light weight so familiar,
infused with a tenderness
that has deepened over decades.
They are made now of over ten thousand
shared dinners, some in candlelight,
some with chaos. They are made now
of over ten thousand mornings
waking together with their fingers entwined.
Made of mountains they’ve hiked
and trails they’ve skied and gardens
they’ve grown and children they’ve raised
and lost and continue to love.
There is a quiet between them now
that holds them in a way words cannot,
a silence they share that is theirs.
With a gesture, they invite each other
to share the changing leaves, the heron
in flight, the pleasing sour scent
of the garden as it dies. They know
that to share the ephemeral
is one of the greatest gifts we are given.
Tonight they share the rose as dusk fades to dark.
Share the softening of their own aging hearts.
She puts her hand into his, and he receives it.
There are vows, yes, but now
they share what can never be spoken.
Gesture
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged gesture, involuntary movement, long marriage, love on September 2, 2025| 4 Comments »
I love when he puts his fingers
to his lips and holds them there,
as if creating a tiny place to hide.
It’s like a cloud attempting
to hide the whole sky.
When we first met,
I began to do it, too,
hold my fingers to my lips
as if in this way I might become
a little more him. It felt like
trying on someone else’s shoes.
And then there were the years
I wanted nothing between us,
and I felt a small slice of anger
each time he’d cover his face.
This is the way of old love.
What first attracts us then repels,
then one day attracts us again
as we learn to love the other
without trying to change them.
There he is now, on the couch,
three fingers pressed to his lips.
I love the man I see and
the man he tries to hide.
At some point, my longing
to change him became the cloud.
All along, he was the sky.
Shining
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged apple tree, light, long marriage, love, sun on May 16, 2025| 13 Comments »
Have you seen the way the sun
spills only the teensiest fraction
of its light into the crabapple tree
and yet that is enough to transform
the petals from plain flat white
into radiant luminosity? Sometimes
love does this, too—I am thinking
of the way a woman can wake up
beside another human for thirty-some years,
perhaps she thinks she knows that person,
perhaps she really does, and then,
one morning, she sees them anew,
shining, gleaming even—not
just some trick of the light but
some magic love offers us,
the chance to witness how our
partner is changing, to marvel
at their ongoing becoming, to know
afresh just how lucky we are.
The Partners
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dance, long marriage, love, marriage, partnership on February 4, 2024| 10 Comments »
After thirty years, she knows
he will speak with his mouth full.
He knows her stomach will gurgle
in the silence before they sleep.
He will set the table.
She will water the plants.
He will wash the windows.
She will dust the piano.
After thirty years, she still thrills
when he sits close on the couch
and rests his head on her shoulder,
then sighs aloud and closes his eyes.
She loves when the moment lasts.
In the mornings, he will look at the clouds
and tell her the direction of the wind,
what it means about the storm.
She will walk up to him with open arms
and hold him there, in the middle
of the kitchen. There will be no music.
It may look as if they are standing still,
but it’s part of a long and intricate dance,
a dance they are still learning,
a dance no one else can teach them.
See how they step back, how they spin,
how they step in toward each other again.
The Small Stuff
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged hope, kindness, long marriage on December 13, 2023| 8 Comments »
There is kindness in the way
he goes to four stores until he finds
the pink and purple tapers I asked for.
Kindness in the way he folds back
the sheets on my side of the bed
when I’m late to come to sleep.
Kindness in his hands
when he rests them on my shoulders.
Kindness in how he fills the hot pot
with water in preparation
for the next time I make tea.
And there is in me wild gratefulness
for such kindness,
the kind beyond the grand gesture,
the kind that arrives so quiet, so humble
it could almost be overlooked,
the daily gesture that says I see you,
I know you, you matter, I’m here.
The kindness so small it can find its way
into a heartache so big
and somehow tip the scale
toward hope, toward love.
By the Light of the Moon
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dream, long marriage, sleep on May 10, 2023| 11 Comments »
Such tender choreography,
the way we fall asleep,
our bodies quiet beside each other,
my hand a bird inside the nest of your hand,
and then, when you turn to one side
my body, even in sleep, will turn to curl
with yours. And later, we are again like two stems,
like two wicks, like twin streams touching.
I don’t understand how it is
our bodies know to move, to curve,
to find each other in the dark. I only know
I am grateful for these night hours
when flesh is soft and full of dream
and trust is a sweet and blooming thing
and there is a beauty that no one else sees
as we turn again, turn again.
The New Courting
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged long marriage, love, poem, poetry on September 24, 2015| Leave a Comment »
Love, of course you’re not worthy
and I am not worthy, either.
Who do we think we are?
After twenty years, don’t
we know failure by now,
each other’s and our own?
There’s so little to hide,
and still we try to prove, what?
That we are good?
Oh love, my dear one, bring me
your undeserving hands,
I will give you my stained hands,
too, and let us hold each other
the way only two damaged
people can do—as if the world
depends on it, knowing full well
that it does.
Without Thinking
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged long marriage, love, night, poem, poetry on July 24, 2015| 4 Comments »
All night we turn
into each other’s arms
between dreams,
readjusting our bellies,
our backs, our toes
so they touch each other
lightly. Not the fumbling
of the newly met,
but the tenderness
of the long married,
we who know the
other’s body—all
the angles and softnesses,
all the positions where we
gently fit if only we bend an elbow
just so, if only we move
our leg just here—
how easy it is
to bend together
through darkness, how
beautiful to find you,
to be found.
Weather Report
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged long marriage, love, poem, poetry on January 11, 2015| 5 Comments »
Though they predicted gray and snow,
the sun grew warmer all day long,
the sky crescendoed blue—
how could I help but pinch myself
that’s how it’s been with me and you.