Friday, June 20, 2008

POETRY FRIDAY: The Country of Marriage

My husband and I will be heading to New Mexico next Tuesday for a wedding. We decided to spend several days out there so we could do some sightseeing. We’re even hoping to go hot air ballooning one morning. We’ll be staying at a resort in the Santa Ana Pueblo--where the wedding and reception will be held. New Mexico has been at the top of my list of places to visit since I retired four years ago. I can’t wait to do some exploring out there!

Since I’ll be on vacation next week, I doubt I’ll be posting on Poetry Friday.

Here are the beginning and ending stanzas of a poem by Wendell Berry that I selected in honor of the young couple who will soon be married.


From The Country of Marriage
By Wendell Berry

1.

I dream of you walking at night along the streams
of the country of my birth, warm blooms and the nightsongs,
of birds opening around you as you walk.
You are holding in your body the dark seed of my sleep.


7.

I give you what is unbounded, passing from dark to dark,
containing darkness: a night of rain, an early morning.
I give you the life I have let live for love of you:
a clump of orange-blooming weeds beside the road,
the young orchard waiting in the snow, our own life
that we have planted in this ground, as I
have planted mine in you. I give you my love for all
beautiful and honest women that you gather to yourself
again and again, and satisfy—and this poem,
no more mine than any man’s who has loved a woman.


You can read the rest of the poems here.


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At Wild Rose Reader, I have an original acrostic poem about crickets.

The Poetry Friday Roundup is at Semicolon this week.

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Always a pleasure to see one by Berry. Great choice for the almost-newlyweds!

Elaine Magliaro said...

I just came across this poem a few days ago. I thought it was a good choice for the soon-to-be-wed couple, too!