Two Poems on Love That Should be Read at More Weddings

Perhaps this title induced many an eye roll, but I couldn't resist. I recently stumbled across two different poems on love, and I'm kind of obsessed with both of them.

You know how everyone always reads the same passage about love at weddings? Love is patient, love is kind....etc. The youth-group going girl I was knows it's from 1 Corinthians 13, of course. Well, don't get me wrong, I like that passage—it's just, it makes love sound a little unattainable to me. Patient, kind, keeps no record of wrong, doesn't boast, is not rude, is not self-seeking? Shoot.

I mean, let's start at the very beginning. If love is patient, count me out.

I can't wait in a long grocery store line without plotting the ultimate demise of every shopper in front of me. And don't get me started on driving. (I'm looking at you, Wisconsin!) I said it a long time ago, but I'm considering writing a book called "If You're Going 57 mph Get the %$@! out of the Passing Lane, and Other Pearls of Wisdom to Live By."

Anyway, love poems.

I'm going to let these poems speak for themselves, rather than bore you with English-major dissections of each of them ;)

The first one I stumbled across on Design for Mankind (a wonderful blog, in my opinion) in this post.

THE PATIENCE OF ORDINARY THINGS
By Pat Schneider

It is a kind of love, is it not?
How the cup holds the tea,
How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare,
How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes
Or toes. How soles of feet know
Where they're supposed to be.
I've been thinking about the patience 
Of ordinary things, how clothes
Wait respectfully in closets
And soap dries quietly in the dish, 
And towels drink the wet
From the skin of the back.
And the lovely repetition of stairs.
And what is more generous than a window?


The second one is included in the book Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott which I'm currently reading and loving.

THE WILD ROSE
by Wendell Berry

Sometimes hidden from me
in daily custom and in trust,
so that I live by you unaware
as by the beating of my heart,

Suddenly you flare in my sight,
a wild rose blooming at the edge
of thicket, grace and light
where yesterday was only shade,

and once again I am blessed, choosing
again what I chose before.

Wouldn't it be lovely to hear one of these read at a wedding? I think so. Any other great love poems you'd like to share? I'm always on the look out.