Thursday’s are for Poetry | 4.20.23
This week is all about love… a difficult subject for me. I am not a flowery, all sorts of love words kind of person.
But I began the great Love Poem search both online and scouring my poetry books for something… loving.
And after all that searching I still came back to two love poems that have a bit of a different focus. The first, Love After Love by Derek Walcott (a poem that Kym shared years ago) and a new-ish poem by Maggie Smith that I discovered after I purchased her book of poems, Goldenrod. It is this poem that I am sharing today… I have printed this poem out and it has joined Love After Love on board by my desk… daily reminders for me. I hope that Maggie’s poem speaks to you as well…
Bride
by Maggie Smith
How long have I been wed
to myself? Calling myself
darling, dressing for my own
pleasure, each morning
choosing perfume to turn
me on. How long have I been
alone in this house but not
alone? Married less
to the man that to the woman
silvering with the mirror.
I know the kind of wife
I need and I become her:
the one who will leave
this earth at the same instant
I do. I am my own bride,
lifting the veil to see
my face. Darling, I say,
I have waited for you all my life.
Bride from Goldenrod: Poems © Maggie Smith, 2021. One Signal Publishers / Atria Books, Simon and Schuster, Inc.
You can hear Maggie read the poem here and you can learn more about Maggie here.
Make sure you check out what Kym, Bonny, and Sarah have shared today!
