Marriage Poems

A backwater town (if only there was water) nestled in base of a mountain valley, in a county called Mineral County, with a 2010 census of 410 people (up from 2000, when the town had a mere 374 people living in 152 households) is host to a bookstore proclaiming “100,000 Used Books.”

So off the interstate we turn, neither one of us able to resist a used bookstore. Having spent some long afternoons at Powell’s as well as stopping in used bookstores in just about every town we ever visit, we have proof on our bookshelves of the wisdom of stopping. Treasures – old tomes, newer children’s books, collections of poetry, art coffee table books, classic fiction, books that will end up as next season’s Christmas gifts, psychology and philosophy and history and comparative religion and books about food and wine and cooking ...

My husband, who is taller and can actually examine items on the top shelves - and can hold more books in his arms - always comes away with more selections than me – the lower-shelf browser with girl-sized arms. We stay as long as we can before the inevitable cat hair and dust overwhelm my system, and I reluctantly must head to the counter to make my purchases. I could stay longer, I imagine, if I brought my own oxygen tank.

But back to the backwater. We pull up in this very small town, only to realize we’d made the same decision four years ago, the adventuresome spirit of just popping off the highway to explore something cool and new slightly deflating. But we’re here, so we do what all married couples do – repeat the past. As soon as we’re in the door, we’ve confirmed, that yes, this is the same place. It may have 100,000 books, but that includes the ones piled all the way to the ceiling. And since it gets its inventory from the surrounding area, it has slightly less breadth and depth than if it were closer to anything mildly urban. So the odds of finding a treasure today are slim.

Off I head to Literature and Poetry; my husband heads to Psychology. My eye wanders over some compilations, some poets I’ve (of course) never heard of, and rests on a little white tome, just 6½ inches high, called, Marriage Poems. The cover promises a “sparkling collection of poems about virtually every aspect of matrimony” with contributions from Shakespeare, Omar Khayyám, D.H. Lawrence, Ovid and even the Song of Songs from the Old Testament.

We’d been feeling very couple-y on our road trip, as we had the luxury to spend hours discussing our relationship and our parenting, concluding that we’re just delighted with ourselves. We might have edited out some things, and put a positive spin on some of our less great bits, but it’s nice to spend time glorifying one another rather than a tempting, yet toxic, tug to find fault. Plus, we’re coming up to our anniversary. I figured I’d get the book, and we’d read love poems to each other that night. Not that we have a big history with doing this, but there have been the few times.

As we got back in to the car, with this as our sole purchase, and drove off, I started going through the pages. “Read me one,” my husband requested. I’d just finished the first one, and it was sing-songy and evoked an image of busty young maidens dancing around the May pole. I read it anyway. He was under-impressed. The second reading produced a vague sexual reference I’d missed the first time, but still nothing great. Just because I can’t resist, here’s the last stanza:

My husband will buy me a guinea gold ring,
And at night he’ll give me a far better thing,
With two precious jewels he’ll be me adorning,
When I am his bride, on Monday morning.

Thankfully, there’s no known author.

Later that night, I kept pouring through the book, expectantly waiting for the ones we could read to each other to highlight our road-trip romance.

Except that I couldn’t find a single poem I liked. Even the segment from Song of Songs wasn’t as pleasing as the part that was in our marriage ceremony: “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.” I suppose mine wasn’t from the King James Version, but still, you’d think it would sound as good.

We’ll have to wait to find love poems that convey more, well, love. I’m tempted to write a poem about unappealing marriage poems, that perhaps one day will end up in a slight compilation in a musty, dusty, used bookstore. Until then, this entry will have to suffice.