"Poem for the Golden Wedding of My Puritan Grandparents", by Canadian poet Alden Nowlan.
Their love was sister to the starving deer
and brother to December. Had he called
her "darling" in his annual drunkenness,
(for he got drunk at Christmas) her lean lips
would have recoiled as when she tasted milk
that had gone sour or observed a girl…
As it should. Thank you for sharing this. Kind of reminded me of my grandparents. My grandpa would chase my grandma around the house and pinch her bum and always be talking about how gorgeous she was and my grandma would feign horror and call him names. She died three months after he did. It was here together or both gone together. I miss them.
"Poem for the Golden Wedding of My Puritan Grandparents", by Canadian poet Alden Nowlan.
Their love was sister to the starving deer
and brother to December. Had he called
her "darling" in his annual drunkenness,
(for he got drunk at Christmas) her lean lips
would have recoiled as when she tasted milk
that had gone sour or observed a girl
in little breeches. So he always spoke
of her as "the old lady", "ma" or "Maud."
And in their fifty years they never kissed.
But when he withered of the fanged disease
that ate his vitals till he lived on slop
and sat in silence louder than a groan,
we children marvelled how she sometimes sat
for hours simply staring at his face,
and how before they closed the box she bent
with awful eagerness to pat his hand.
Enduring love comes in all sorts of form.
As it should. Thank you for sharing this. Kind of reminded me of my grandparents. My grandpa would chase my grandma around the house and pinch her bum and always be talking about how gorgeous she was and my grandma would feign horror and call him names. She died three months after he did. It was here together or both gone together. I miss them.