Startled by Existence

Note: This note reads absolutely corny and is fully embarrassing… which is just the way young love is supposed to sound. I wrote it to my Kerry about five months before our engagement; The inspiration—our nightly walks around the block. In fact, I first knew she would be my wife while on a small-group backpacking trip just a month before. We walked up the trail alone and at night with a huge full moon spread out over a high mountain vista in Rocky Mountain National Park. Some million stars, and a sounding stream, and the distant bugling elk joined us as we joined to pray for God’s hand in our future.

Oct 16, 1988 Sunday 6A.M.

My Dearling Kerry,

How is it that you wear the pearl of night so well? You have, already in our short but saturated weeks, worn the wash of a dozen nights in ways that astonish my senses. Indeed, I think he made the moon and your hair to exist in a somewhat symbiotic relationship. Both thrive off of one another.

Kerry, I love your eyes by night. I think he made the stars, or even the bright city bounce, for them. You catch and blend this light so well and shine it back and me in a soft warm silver glow.

I love you so.

Kirk

Mobile Art: in honor of Kerry K. now Kerry J. – yea! 1990

Kerry kinetic

Of lip and eye

With a spandex brow

And liquid sigh,

Do you really feel so deep

Or somewhat amplify

Each welling of emote?

 

We note that you are beautiful,

Even statuesque

But when you bend that skin of yours

You quickly put to rest

The thought

That you should ever rightly be

Chiseled into stone

or bone

metal or hard plastic,

 

No,

your depiction calls

for mobile art

Tethered with elastic

Or better yet

A concept work:

 

Try --

A silly-Putty

Aphrodite, in her nightie

chewing gum

And tripping from the shell.

A Poem to my wife in which I remember (Parts one) 4-6/2001

* this is a slightly edited version of the original in keeping with a public forum.  I have also chosen to hold parts 2-4 for another time. 

1989.  Tall Grass Praire near Prue OK, where I asked you to be my wife.

Remember

how it was when we sped away

bandits in a get away - into a red-neck traffic jam,

all those laughing groomsmen

GOONSMEN! boxing us in, and forcing us to low ride

in a lurch parade

the tank

near on empty, even then.

 

As it is, Dennis

that righteous menace,

wired a horn

to our brake light.

We grinned and bore

the din and stare, hoping everyone would see

the streaming silly paper and the shaving cream

We were good sports too:

We smacked lip, as strangers turned

first to frown, then to smile.

We honked our way into

each red light or curve

riding fumes to the station.

 

Remember those few awkward hours,

just before a dinner invitation for our evening.

(too few for breaking boundaries –

too many for our new permission.)

Silly me - I'd agreed to appease my

step-dad with a slide show of my travels

meant I guess, to impress our out of town guests.

 

Time that should have been ours

to talk, touch, or pray

whittled away against all these pictures

of a past life…

and a freedom I would never see again.

 

Later … when some guests

felt awkward for us and the pining hours

they pushed us out

into the unknown air;

My new apartment, with the new sheets

dressed for us.

And now … what to do?

We were tired to the bone.

Months of planning with a week of cram.

Big swirling wedding. Big swirling day.

Moments that would blur among the smiles

and the guests and cake

only to be made alive

with photos.

(I know now why they take them --

Not so much to remember,

but to believe

that anything happened at all.)

So we arrived -

wed, licensed, and approved

to cross the threshold.

 

For a moment I faltered … May be we should go to sleep

I mean, really sleep.

We had waited decades, why not wait another night.

But you knew … some rituals

are not for breaking

so you sent me away, for the moment.

In a moment we would pray;

Invite God to join us in the unknown

and the years ahead.

And I laid my head on you

and fell into the crest

of my world’s softest wave.

 

Selah

 

And you,

who were

my Kerry, like your name - a high green meadow --

or …like a hidden island off the coast of Wales ..

all rustic and wild ….

 

We, tame Baptist or Presbyterian boys that we were,

Had spied your ramparts, draped under fog

But no boat had ever pressed your shore.

You called the wind aside, and bid me dock

I walked the Rolling hills, and Heather,

I felt my way along the path

of a sturdy land

that you had saved for me.

 

 

--------

 

Remember,

that next day

when we joined

a clang of happy vultures at the table.

 

Our families had a legacy and recipe to guard,

we tried not to smile when they asked:

"So you like being married?"

 

(And we did.)

 

Remember

how it was, in that first week or month--

all these forever first-time things,

in an avalanche of newness.

It was kind of like being born, and seeing it.

Indeed, if something's going to be new …

Why not make it everything.

 

First time sheets

and first time dishes

first time popcorn popper

first time lead crystal things that I just don’t get, even now.

first time to ever check into a motel and say …

“This is my wife”, and smile at the clerk.

First time shopping (would it have been our last!)

First time to hear, What is wrong with men anyway?

First time ever to come home to a candle-lit meal

after having eaten two cheese burgers

out of single habit.

Etc.

 

Remember, (Yes!)

the Honeymoon - two weeks of Westward Ho!

You sat with me so close

in something like a constant swoon.

Believe it --- you did.

 

Remember too

that small Texas Town--

We never really saw it, but I stood, like a Japanese tourist

under the interstate sign to GROOM.

 

Remember, trying to save bucks

in Austin, found the low-rent run of motels

left over from the great depression.

A quick whiff of curry and the sight of cigarette burned veneer

sent us off to better things.

 

Remember the concrete Tepees

and the way that the ground became all wide and hot

like something wide and hot.

 

Remember too

the Arizona blue

that dropped into that grand vermilion absence.

Some millions joined us on the rim

but when we slid beneath the skin

with backpacks, He could have dug it just for us;

this weird inverted mountain, like a garden

hidden in the moon.

 

As it is, you read somewhere that one should take

a gallon of water for every back country mile,

so I portaged in a bathtub, while little old men

in tennis shoes

went whizzing down, then up -- as we lay panting on the trail

and I tried to think of written lines that went with

dying at the Pre-Cambrian.

 

Remember

how much harder, is the Up, than down,

and how we stumbled out near after dark

like we had been in rodeo – all bruised at the bone

and walking in our sleep,

but (Ha!)

 

Not even that could stop young love!

Remember our next days --

We headed north into the land of Utah

where everyone should feel

religiously weird.

This place gets strange, the Grand is grand, but this

our cosmic treat … three cheers for all the folks who keep

Zion National Park something of a national secret.

 

Indeed, do you remember the flanks of Zion:

monoliths of muscle red, set like teeth in a ruby jaw.

We saw the lines of our topo-map converged

in vertigo --

sheer black

We saw,

the hills crack open – up and under

like and apple pulled apart

then pushed

We camped with cramps upon

a saddle

set atop a fertile precipice

of lunge and vibrant greens,

streams of weathered rock

cascading down like rusted trees.

 

At night, we stood above a

moon lit plunge where pines

grew like “j’s from the walls

and we looked down on

eagles.

or – Kerry and the kids go on a vacation, without me --- kind of. (7/01)

This ghost of me, that is not me

goes every where you go;

This ghost of you that is not you

saddles with my very eyes

and whispers in my vision.

 

What shall we say of such a Being:

It is one times two,

It is two pressed together, twined,

It is you in me and me in you.

 

It is one.

 

I have about me

this me-ness.

You have about you

this you-ness.

But you have climbed

through every portal of sense

until

no other face

no other voice

no other force of habit,

No other picture of

what a woman looks like

can survive.

 

Now that you are far away

I think sometimes about our children.

I reproduce their faces,

for the moment.

 

But what's this phantom

that has leached the very cells

of my inner eye?

 

I blink,

and behold your fleeting face

traced hot like the spot of a bulb.

 

Will I return the favor?

 

Will I lift your eyes with wonder,

to the crashing surf – will you see strange things

within the clouds? Will my face flicker

like a strobe between the frames?

 

And now – I hear you

singing in the background,

I touch your strong face and back,

But you are more than sculpture

that I turn on the stage of my inner mind;

 

You are branded in my brain and I feel you thinking with me:

 

SO … Should I buy the delicious milk?

Or sacrifice my pleasure

for the One-percent?

Anchored: a Mid-love life poem to my wife. 8/01

For Christians, the reason why it is ordinarily assumed that a marriage will go on "till death do us part" has been that this advanced lesson in Charity which marriage opens into is a long, a difficult one, and the life span that my spouse and I are allowed will certainly not be nearly long enough to finish the lesson . . . I will have as much as I can do to learn this advanced lesson well with one other person; a harem will only confuse my efforts.              Thomas Howard: Hallowed be This House

We have crossed the border of our fine humid state,

and tasted bluer air.

 

We have traveled on vacation into sights

that fill our minds with dreamy things:

Rocks streaming overhead like jump-ropes,

high vista sweeps and white water plunge --

 

Only to ask: WHAT in the WORLD are we doing

plugging away in Arkansas ,

even with its green moldy hills,

and soft curved streams

I’ve got this job, but even that could fade –

Family is far away, and nothing short of

Caesar making taxes on the whole blue world,

could ever drive us to a single place.

 

Most of us have gone

searching for some kid-hood home ..

and found a house instead.

 

Yea babe – you admit it quick, were displaced,

And looking for that final hearth.

 

But here, here in the heartland, beside you

I find my one unmoved geography.

 

These lips have kissed your lips until

I could pick you at the kiss contest, blindfolded, with a single touch.

I know the weight and distribution of your body –

The hills and dales and cutaways; And though we won’t ask me

to find you in some contest …

this landscape matches with my dreams.

 

Sure the scenery changes … ever slow,

You decry erosion,

Or the shifting shore line –

But these rocks beneath the silt

are firm, and no continent is lost

to the changing tide.

 

There is a riddle to this union

bigger than us both -- Haven’t we both asked:

How in the world did we ever get married?

or even,

Must I be in this forever?

 

We are:

Kirk the Jerk, and Kerry Jean

Who would lick our platters clean, should

we ever share the plate;

 

We are:

Two different eyes, in two different heads, with

Two different thoughts about most everything.

 

We are:

Flex vs. Stiff

Flow vs. Shove.

Chaos vs. Discipline.

Tomorrow vs NOW!

Good-intention vs. Accomplishment.

 

Thanks babe. I needed you.

 

Then there is that matter

of being known

It’s taken many years –

to carve ME in your soul – and I don’t think

that I could find my heart

in the eyes

of a stare – that don’t look back

into mine, with knowing.

 

So .. let the advertisers bark;

I have made my mind

To keep my castle here

with us for eternity –

 

Until death do us part –

 

Wherever we might move.

 

PS.

Did I mention that I love you?

 

(A sample of some of my favorite verse celebrating sacred romance.)

Under his forming hands a Creature grew

Manlike but different sex, so lovely fair,

That what seemed fair in all the world seem’d now

Mean, or in her summ’d up, in her contained

And in her looks, from that time infused

Sweetness into my heart unfelt before,

And into all things from her Air inspir’d

The spirit of love and amorous delight.

She disappeared and left me dark, I wak’d

To find her, or forever to deplore

Her loss, and other pleasures all abjure

When out of hope, behold her not far off,

Such as I saw her in my dream adorn’d

With what all Earth or Heaven could bestow

To make her amiable: On she came

Led by her heav’nly maker, though unseen

And guided by His voice, nor uninform’d

Of nuptial Sanctity and marital Rights:

Grace was in all her steps, and Heav’n in her Eye

And every gesture dignity and love.

John Milton – Paradise Lost. (sliver)

In marriage, one of the deepest and most ethereal mysteries in all of life is demystified before our very eyes, For when we get married, love itself comes to live with us. That thing we have been chasing ever since we were old enough to believe (however naively) that it must or could be sought, has taken off all its cloths and stretched itself out on our very own bed, and announced that it is here to stay. Suddenly the thing we believed to be characterized above all else by its elusiveness turn out to be not elusive at all, but just the opposite. That which was unapproachable becomes that which cannot be got rid of. What was most glamorous and exciting seems to insist, now, on being the most ordinary thing in the world. It is like the philosophical question about the dog chasing the car, which is—What happens if he catches it. Marriage faces us squarely with the problem of love once we have finally caught it. Or rather, once it has caught us. For marriage is a trap of pure love. (Mike Mason – the Mystery of Marriage -One of the top ten books in the history of the world)

On getting hooked , or--Real title: Bait (an excerpt)

Let others freeze with angling reeds,

And cut their legs with shells and weeds,

Or treacherously poor fish beset,

With stangling snare, or windowy net.

Let coarse bold hands from slim nest

The bedded fish in banks out-wrest

Or curious traitors, sleeve-silk flies

Bewitched poor fishes wandering eyes.

For thou, thou need’st no such deceit,

For thou thyself art thine own bait;

That fish, that is not catch’d thereby

Alas! Is wiser far than I.

John Donne

I want to lay your body down

And make this earth our bed

Pull the flax and tangerine

Up over our heads.

Or maybe winter’s just like me

With “bitter patience” and restraint

Waiting for some perfect moment

To throw off all restraint.

Jan Krist Lyric from “Waiting for the Cosmic shoe to fall”

Album: Outposts of the Counter Culture.

Sun rises and we talk about the weather
Sun bleaches and we ponder it all
The fine line between the banker and the debtor -- 
And what happens if the satellites fall
Too shy we are to come right out and say it
Too sly to let the other one know
Head full of this kaleidoscope of brain-freight
Heart full of something simple and slow

Love is not the only thing
It's the best thing
Love is never everything
But it's the best thing

Let's go up on the roof beneath the neon
Pretend we're foreigners and drink the city in
Somewhere between the stairwell and the starlight
I find myself holding your hand
Half-cousins to the angels and the demons
Half-brother to the fatherless sons
I lay awake and wonder at the reasons
One kiss and I am lost in your charms

Mark Heard (From the Album Satellite Sky -- The third finest album in the history of the world.)

There are three things that are too wonderful for me

Yea four that I know not:

The way of an eagle in the sky

The way of a serpent on a rock

The way of the ship in the midst of the sea

And the way of a man with a maiden

(Agur, Book of Proverbs 30: 18-19)

He is the way,

Follow Him through the Land of Unlikeness;

You will see rare beasts, and have unique

adventures.

He is the Truth

Seek Him in the Kingdom of Anxiety;

You will come to a great city that has

expected your return for years.

He is the Life

Love Him in the world of Flesh;

And at your marriage all its occasions shall

dance for joy.

W.H. Auden

Thigpen’s Wedding:

Here I set my face unto you,

Here I speak my hearts true vow

Here I choose to walk beside you

loving only you, my heart speaks true

forever more from now

I will love you in the morning

and in the bright noon day.

I will love you in the even’.

Every day I live, my heart I’ll give.

I will love you from my grave.

I have heard God in your laughter

I have seen Him on you face

and its clear now what He’s after

for He wrote your name on my heart

in flame.

It’s a wound I’ll not erase.

We will mount the wings of morning

We will fly before the wind

We will dwell within the mystery

of the glories of Jehovah’s love

a circle without end.

We will pitch our tents toward Zion

in the Shadow of His Love

We will covenant between us.

We will covenant with the earth below

and with heaven up above.

We will covenant with the dust below

and the Spirit up above.

Kemper Crabb, from the album the Vigil

written for the Thigpen’s but borrowed for the wedding of Kirk and Kerry Jordan

(Thanks Kemper--hope we didn’t break the law)

And Adam

knew his wife…

Getting to know you, getting to know all about you …

(Song fragment, My Fair Lady)