Faith, Family, & Focaccia

A faith and culture Mommy blog, because real life gets all mixed together like that.


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Lucky Thirteen: Day 13 of the April Poetry Challenge

I am not usually a superstitious person, and I have never been very convinced by numerology. On this thirteenth day of April, however, I am inspired by another 13, probably the most important of my life. Last August my husband and I celebrated 13 years of marriage.

It wasn’t our easiest year, but it was very important, and I learned a lot about love. So, today’s poem is my effort to share (and celebrate) those lessons.

Lucky Thirteen

 

It’s supposed to be unlucky.

Number 13…

the thirteenth floor,

the thirteenth day,

the thirteenth year.

 And in marriage, at least, this makes

So.

Much.

Sense.

Thirteen years after the wedding, the honeymoon is nearly

forgotten.

Life is full of

responsibilities and restlessness,

disagreements and distractions,

frustrations and foibles

that aren’t so endearing anymore,

Thirteen years worth of everything that pulls two souls apart.

 

But… all those reasons

are what made our thirteenth year

so lucky.

Not because we avoided all these things,

the pains and petty grievances.

Not because we proved our love exempt

from burns in the crucible of marriage.

 

But rather, because we didn’t.

 

It is so easy to become complacent,

to take for granted the presence

of a life-mate,

a companion,

a lover,

a friend;

to forget to practice daily gratitude in acts of care.

Until things start to rub,

to chafe

to scrape raw the thin veneer of passive toleration.

Until minor irritations begin to spread,

like a rash,

spreading across the skin,

the surface of daily interactions.

It is then that you realize the need for

attention.

The rash is not infected, not acute,

but if allowed to spread

it can compromise the entire body.

It requires gentle care

a soft caress,

a soothing balm on irritations,

the medicine of daily acts of love.

And in the simple things,

the ointment of paying attention,

of thinking once again

how can I put him first? her first?

you find the luck of being married

thirteen years.

Marriage isn’t magic.

And it’s not really about luck.

But…

here’s to hoping.

No!

to knowing

that the next thirteen years

will be just as “lucky”.

And the next thirteen.

And the next.

And the next.

 


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Rocky Soil (Rocky Soul): Day 12 of the April Poetry Challenge

I have to start by explaining that I am NOT a gardener. I am so much not a gardener that I would advise you to give me responsibility for any plants that you want killed. No need to tell me about the goal – they will end up dead even if I am trying to keep them alive. I have killed… bamboo. I bet you didn’t know that was possible, did you?

That being said, our return to our US house has presented a substantial gardening challenge. Our tenant of nearly three years did absolutely NOTHING with our planter beds, which had the predictable result of weeds that are taller than I am (and I am on the more statuesque side of the feminine height chart). Thus was born the anomaly of a gardening task ideally suited for me: unwanted plant removal.

Given my aforementioned skill at botanicide, this should have been easy. Unfortunately even weed killers need a basic appreciation for different soil types. The soil in the bed that staged yesterday’s effort at weed-wrangling was very rocky. As in, hundreds of little root-grabbers hiding in the dirt, repelling the invasion of the shovel blade, and making weed removal an exercise in… patience.

OK, there were a few intervals of intense frustration and there might have been an expletive or two, but mostly my several hours of work to clear less than two square feet of ground was an opportunity for contemplation as well as physical labor. As I kneeled in the dirt I gained a new appreciation for the metaphor of seed and soil, and also a new take on a very old parable.

 

Rocky Soil (Rocky Soul)

 

In the parable Jesus calls them troubles –

the rocky trials that block the roots of faith.

But rocky soil can pose another problem;

for hidden stones can block the digging spade.

 

This gardener seeks release for diving roots

of weeds that mar the garden of her soul,

but bending back, frustrated in its efforts,

despairs of the clear ground that is its goal.

 

These life-bound rocks can take the form of troubles,

but also of distractions, or of fears,

that make the steady work of transformation

much harder than the will to change appears.

 

I struggle with the under-surface tangle

of failings that are twisted round the stones

of habit, or of “innocent” addictions

that hold in place the traits that I bemoan.

 

The only cure is intimate persistence

no digging from above at shovel’s length.

Such rocks must be removed by digging fingers.

What’s needed is attention more than strength.

 

What’s needed is to kneel in my life’s soil,

– a penitent position, but not weak –

for prayer is a good labor for the gardener

with hope to grow the garden that I seek.