The Marriage Bed

One of the more frustrating things about moving to Memphis is the lack of 24-7 NPR that I took for granted while in LA. Where I used to be able to find endless programming and endless pundits to satisfy my current news fix, now I lie in wait of commercial breaks from the 6 hour block of classical music that used to be Talk of the City and Bookworm and Which Way LA and Larry Mantle and Film Week. Now I get little snippets at the top of the hour - rushed little clips of Jamie Tarabay sounding depressed in Iraq or Corey Flintoff sounding smug and cozy in the highbacked armchair and pipe I for some reaosn picture him with. Today I lucked into the Writer's Alamanac, Garrison Keillor's homage to since-passed authors and a lovely poem to round out the segment. Today's poem was The Marriage Bed by Michael Simms, a beautiful tribute to the beauty and excitement and boredom and challenges and the ultimate satisfaction of sharing your life with another. I'm happy to pass it onto you...


The Marriage-Bed

for Eva

The marriage-bed is the center of happiness,
a point from which all things ripple outward,
a nest from which all things learn to fly.
It is the sign of return, part of the great rhythm
of the seasons and of the years.
It is the dream of return, the strength and faith
that sing of home.
It is the wren's nest woven of twigs and string,
the swallow's nest of saliva and mud.
It is what we return to, as migratory birds
passing over marshes and fields
dream of the end of the journey.
It is what frightens night-devils away,
even in winter.
It is the tree that grows through the house,
the hollow of the tree that has never known death.
It is the crystal of all feeling, the flower of all
understanding, the small containing the large.
It is the nautilus growing its many chambers of love.
It is the sudden outburst of one who has long been silent.
It is the idea that a calla lily can be shaped
like a wineglass on a long green stem.
It is the heart-stone.
It is the name of all names
that thinks it is a star and a rose.
It is a conch-shell rough on the outside,
pearly in its intimacy.
It is a snail rolling over and over
building a staircase.
It is an animal, an almond, a repose.
It is an oyster opening in the full of the moon.
It is a mouth telling a secret.
It is a kiln where clay battles fire.
It is the simple happiness of sleeping on a boat.
These are the walls we've pressed back into a circle
in the shape of our merged bodies
And it will take a long time for the waves
spreading from the center of our intimacy
to reach the ends of the world.