Poetry And Marriage
“Because the condition of marriage is worldly and its meaning communal, no one party can be solely in charge. What you alone think it ought to be, it is not going to be. Where you alone think you want it to go, it is not going to go. It is going where the two of you–and marriage, time, life, history, and the world–will take it. you do not know the road; you have committed your life to a way. In marriage, as in poetry, the given word implies the acceptance of a form that is never entirely of one’s own making. When understood seriously enough, a form is a way of accepting and of living within the limits of creaturely life.”
~ Wendel Berry, “Poetry and Marriage,” Standing by Words
The whole thing can be found here Chapter 5.
I just wrote a paper on this, but my words are not as profound as his, but if you would like to read them clicky. <--
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I was just THINKING today, while chatting with Emily (sometimes I don’t believe my life is real but that is another story), I was thinking “I wish I could read one of Matthew’s annotations, because it sure sounds like he cranks up the crankiness in them.” But look– this is not a cranky annotation! Very fun to read, Matthew.
And for anyone who knows you, understatedly sweet.
Thanks for sharing it.
Most of my annotations are cranky, this was a departure.