Tuesday, October 17, 2006

I Love My Poetic Husband

We've had a very stressful last week or so...BabyG got strep that turned into very mild scarlet fever...and was understandably, vociferously, and persistantly aggrieved...GreenDaddy got an unknown, draining sickness and a headache...I tried to study every spare moment...GreenDaddy's hardrive crashed with an already-three-days-late joint project on it...I started making the stressed-out grimace GreenDaddy hates...it rained inside my car which smells like rotting corpse breath, now...BabyG was too sick to do her favorite weekend-at-the-pool-with-Daddy routine...

And now my comps are a week away! I study every night until 2am because I get at least three, sometimes four hours of absolute alone time.

In all this muck, GreenDaddy wrote me a poem...And I wanted to post it because my concept of Green Parenting isn't just about junk mail, overgrown gardens, and the general lifestyle of dirty hippies: it's about relationships, and supporting not only the children in the family, but the grown-ups...and I feel so lucky to have a poetic, caring, supportive husband at this juncture that I could cross the street with my eyes closed.


A Great Vibration

When I took courses in physics I learned about particles
about the resonance of benzene rings
about the supposed measurability of all things
as if a meter exists for all phenomena
and if a given meter does not exist
it will be invented.

In philosophy courses I learned about limits to knowledge
about the failure of metaphors to describe the electron
about the difference between the wavelength for red
and the lived experience of redness
as if the connection between consciousness and the world
will never ever be understood.

And yet, at midnight last night,
when I walked out of the bedroom
there was a great vibration
not in the air
but in the substratum
in the ether
in the layer of the universe that Michelson and Morely
proved does not exist
and I could sense that it was coming from your head.

Your books were spread across the table
-- the classics, the masterpieces, the cannon! --
and you had turned them into something shimmering
like a thin layer of water
spilling over a dark stone.






 

7 comments:

Fiddler said...

Beautiful, and sweet :)

Anonymous said...

Awesome! Raj's poem inspired me to write a poem to my girlfriend... just because... you know?

We’ve been dating for seven months... so I wrote seven lines of poetry, borrowed from various sonnets by Shakespeare.


Beauty, truth and rarity
Grace in all simplicity

Take, oh, take those lips away
And those eyes, the break of day
But my kisses bring again

And yet, by heaven, I think our love as rare
And any who claim false have none to compare

GreenDaddy said...

Thanks Fiddler.

Morton, I like your idea of composing poetry by remixing language (and I like the actual poetry too). Your website's very interesting. I'd never heard of Spam Poetry before. I'm looking forward to trying it out and making a submission to your site.

Raj

Anonymous said...

Hey you guys--
Raj...gorgeous poem. Lovely.

Miah...I don't know how to say this, and you've already heard, probably, anyway, but I'll tell you what got me through my comps:
1) my sincere hope that they--the graders-- really do WANT me to pass.
2) looking for overlap: that is, knowing a smaller handful of books that I could fit into as many different types of questions as I could, and knowing those books pretty well. This won't work for every test or every question; I hear that sometimes, the question proscribes the books it wants inthe answers, but I found it helpful, making a long list shorter and more manageable.
3) we all love you.

be well and good luck,
and kiss that baby for me,

David in Minneapolis

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the kudos Raj!

sky said...

you too are cute. I'm glad the whole nuclear, monogamy thing works for ya'll. I gave it a good go but evidently it's either not for me or I haven't found the right bodacious babe yet. keep up the solid work. wish I had more time to peruse your writings.

Lulabelle said...

Great post. That's what it's all about.