why untitled, unwritten?

I once labeled everything before it was written, until I found it kept too many words away. Now I am leaving the unwritten untitled, until it grows into a name.

Friday, May 11, 2012

No. 26

I fell a little in love with this poem when I was first falling in love with my husband.  It was assigned in my intro to literature course, but wasn't discussed to death by my professor, like most other works we read, and I fortunately stayed in love with it.

To me, this poem is about that stage of loving someone in which you're very much in love, but afraid of falling out of it, or being left, or being separated from your beloved by circumstances outside your control.  Then, slowly but surely, you discover that the space of life belongs to you both, together, and your love will not be snatched away after all.  This poem is about the journey from the nervous early stages of love into the steady day-by-day lifetime love.

That Night When Joy Began
by W. H. Auden

That night when joy began
Our narrowest veins to flush
We waited for the flash
Of morning's leveled gun.

But morning let us pass,
And day by day relief
Outgrew his nervous laugh
Grows credulous of peace.

As mile by mile is seen
No trespasser's reproach,
And love's best glasses reach
No fields but are his own

Image: my hand in my husband's, the day we got engaged

2 comments:

Me said...

This is so very lovely, Katie! Sweet you are!

Brandi said...

I can see why you fell in love with this poem. It's beautiful, and somehow captures scenes and feelings perfectly, even without many words.