Intersecting Planes

In the arborestum. Noting a flower up above.

 

She walked along the 

   heightened ridge

While I took a meandering path

Through thickets and 

   deep pools

Of reflected dusk 

   and dying days

Where shadows 

   offered bittersweet

Comfort of familiar ways,

Memories and the 

   years of my life.

Where, Lord, should we meet,

This effervescent wife and I?

Her steps incline toward the light of

Cheerful lays and flowered paths—

I often see the underlying pebbles and snakes

And ponder them searching to know

If meaning lies therein too.

How will we walk hand in hand

Toward the spire end of our life together

In the Arboretum, checking out a salamander.

When one of us will

Soar alone toward You,

Sent off with teared farewell

And “Godspeed your journey”?

Perhaps the mystery of God in Three

Can best explain this path to me

Of walking one-stepped in

Different boots with concurrent missions

To accomplish the Finality that coalesces in

One glorious, hopeful Goal.

What is this Godly communion like?

Do each of You (and I speak as a man)

Exist in Uniqueness and Experience,

Yet knotted in perfect three-Love clasp?

Oh Divine Mystery! Let it be!

Help me to walk sure-footed in Your grace

While I keep a stretched-out, 

Firm grasp on hand so small

With heart so big 

Across the canyon of

Who we are and what Your breath

Inspired us to be.

Feb. 12, 2007, © 2007 Nancy Gerst

  

Written from the perspective of my dear husband. This poem acknowledges the difference in our temperaments and offers a prayer that these two will truly become one, not because they are identical but because God brought them together.

From my collection of "Poems for Larry." Shared here on the occasion of our wedding anniversary.