Dear Jeannine, thank you for sharing your gorgeous poem with us. It was a very special gift for your son and his new wife. Sending my congratulations to you all.
I loved reading about the way you began writing your love poem. It is difficult to write about emotions that we all experience but that have a profound effect on our lives. Your ‘way in’ is brilliant.
I have just turned forty and wanted to write about the experience of reaching this milestone, but have been stuck with what to say, how to write about middle age without sounding boring and all gratitude for being here and wise with lessons learned over the years etc etc. But then I read your letter about writing love and I finally found a way in. I started to write all the things I could not say about turning forty and something interesting began to happen — unusual, fresh, exciting material started to arrive on the page.
What a gift, and not just for Max and Kaela, but for anyone who reads this. Thank you, Jeannine, for sharing this special moment and these enlightening words about love.
Congratulations to your son on finding love! The part that stuck out to me was "But you can wonder if love grows the way lichen survives-slow, stubborn, fierce-softening the surface of stone over centuries."
I don't remember where I heard this or who said it, but I absolutely love this saying. 'Anyone can fall in love, it's staying in love that is the hard part. I see this when you wrote about the lichen surviving. Staying with love long enough to let it soften us is what I get out of this.
Beautiful words. And I liked how you said you had to go through all of the cliches first. This was a good reminder for me because I don't like writing cliches either. But maybe if I let myself go there first in order to get to better words is what I need to do.
It is such an honour to read at your son’s wedding. I had to discover this.
When the first of my sons got married about 7 years ago, they asked me if I wanted to speak at the wedding and - never having had much to do with weddings, and not knowing how they went - I said No, you dont want me taking up space, it’s your wedding. On the actual day though, I discovered that parents do speak at weddings, my daughter-in-law’s lovely Faroese mum had even written a song in traditional fashion. My son’s father remained mute, and I felt so inadequate- I did say a few words of welcome in the end.
When my next son asked me to speak at his wedding last year, I said yes. I had a similar process to you with regard to “what do I say”, but had seen a few ideas I thought worth quoting and jotted them down over the months before the wedding. Meantime, my subconscious ticked away as it does, and in the few days before the wedding I put together a short “speech”. I used to be part of running a monthly open mic poetry session, and our time limit was 3 minutes, so I made sure my words were brief, not wanting to bore people or take any of the spotlight. I had to speak after the (long) but amusing and entertaining speech given by the bride’s father (absent for much of her life). I felt totally inadequate. My words went for two minutes, they came from the heart.
For months afterwards, my son’s friends complimented me on that speech, reminding me of it whenever they saw me. My son asked for a copy of it.
It is such a privilege - your poem is perfect, and deserves a frame - I am sure it will be treasured. ❤️
Gorgeous poem, Jeannine. I love hearing the struggle and evolution of your words. And why is it never our first choice to follow our own advice?! Congrats to the newleyweds. Thanks for sharing the photo of you and Jon dancing too!
Hahaha I know, the part about resisting our own advice. Like, somehow I kept thinking I should be able to just sit down and write it without any kind of container or constraint or scaffolding? These are the very tools that have helped me to produce my best work time and again. Then I get lulled ... and thank you for the congratulations! xo
Jeannine, I love this poem and this post is so perfect for me! My daughter and future son-in-law asked me to officiate at their wedding! They want me to write their ceremony. Gah! But this post encourages me so. I'm breathing deep and will simply begin. I'm an essayist, however, not a poet, but still, your advice just to begin and let it all hang out no matter how cliched gives me hope. Your poem is stunning. I bet they cried. Did you?
I adore your process -- and the product! Allowing what you'd 'forbidden' - the cliches - to enfold into the beauty, whilst seeking out the wild and fresh forms to express the big and the small of it. Gorgeous.
I also adore our comments here, like bread in our outstretched hands. Yummm...
What a beautiful poem, and gift for Max and Kaela.
Super classy digs, too.
The process part is really helpful. I can see myself using it the next time I sit down to write about the thing I am writing about that is indeed a bit pesky, because there are things I haven't discovered yet, that I know I need to write into, and I see this being a good way to begin, the next time I begin, which I know that I will, because the idea/topic isn't ready to let me go yet.
Jeannine, I am in awe of your poem. How it begins acknowledging how hard it is to write a love poem - by beginning with what a love poem can’t use, the kind of words often found in love poems that make me cringe. Then you invite the reader into what words will make a true grounded song of love, and sketch out unique ways of talking about true love. There are so many lines I love
Jeanine - this is an extraordinary poem, one I will carry close to my heart (Ha ha said it!) Thank you for sharing your process too. It makes me feel better about the hours I spend noodling over a poem, moving a comma, an article, changing a line break...then putting most of them back, more often than not. Well, what else is there to do in the world?
Congratulations to you and them, Jeannine! What a beautiful poem. “Love is the oldest confession and the highest offering” - and thus hard to write about, but you’ve done it wonderfully!
Beautiful!!
Dear Jeannine, thank you for sharing your gorgeous poem with us. It was a very special gift for your son and his new wife. Sending my congratulations to you all.
I loved reading about the way you began writing your love poem. It is difficult to write about emotions that we all experience but that have a profound effect on our lives. Your ‘way in’ is brilliant.
I have just turned forty and wanted to write about the experience of reaching this milestone, but have been stuck with what to say, how to write about middle age without sounding boring and all gratitude for being here and wise with lessons learned over the years etc etc. But then I read your letter about writing love and I finally found a way in. I started to write all the things I could not say about turning forty and something interesting began to happen — unusual, fresh, exciting material started to arrive on the page.
Kate x
What a gift, and not just for Max and Kaela, but for anyone who reads this. Thank you, Jeannine, for sharing this special moment and these enlightening words about love.
Congratulations to your son on finding love! The part that stuck out to me was "But you can wonder if love grows the way lichen survives-slow, stubborn, fierce-softening the surface of stone over centuries."
I don't remember where I heard this or who said it, but I absolutely love this saying. 'Anyone can fall in love, it's staying in love that is the hard part. I see this when you wrote about the lichen surviving. Staying with love long enough to let it soften us is what I get out of this.
Beautiful words. And I liked how you said you had to go through all of the cliches first. This was a good reminder for me because I don't like writing cliches either. But maybe if I let myself go there first in order to get to better words is what I need to do.
It is such an honour to read at your son’s wedding. I had to discover this.
When the first of my sons got married about 7 years ago, they asked me if I wanted to speak at the wedding and - never having had much to do with weddings, and not knowing how they went - I said No, you dont want me taking up space, it’s your wedding. On the actual day though, I discovered that parents do speak at weddings, my daughter-in-law’s lovely Faroese mum had even written a song in traditional fashion. My son’s father remained mute, and I felt so inadequate- I did say a few words of welcome in the end.
When my next son asked me to speak at his wedding last year, I said yes. I had a similar process to you with regard to “what do I say”, but had seen a few ideas I thought worth quoting and jotted them down over the months before the wedding. Meantime, my subconscious ticked away as it does, and in the few days before the wedding I put together a short “speech”. I used to be part of running a monthly open mic poetry session, and our time limit was 3 minutes, so I made sure my words were brief, not wanting to bore people or take any of the spotlight. I had to speak after the (long) but amusing and entertaining speech given by the bride’s father (absent for much of her life). I felt totally inadequate. My words went for two minutes, they came from the heart.
For months afterwards, my son’s friends complimented me on that speech, reminding me of it whenever they saw me. My son asked for a copy of it.
It is such a privilege - your poem is perfect, and deserves a frame - I am sure it will be treasured. ❤️
Gorgeous poem, Jeannine. I love hearing the struggle and evolution of your words. And why is it never our first choice to follow our own advice?! Congrats to the newleyweds. Thanks for sharing the photo of you and Jon dancing too!
Hahaha I know, the part about resisting our own advice. Like, somehow I kept thinking I should be able to just sit down and write it without any kind of container or constraint or scaffolding? These are the very tools that have helped me to produce my best work time and again. Then I get lulled ... and thank you for the congratulations! xo
Jeannine, I love this poem and this post is so perfect for me! My daughter and future son-in-law asked me to officiate at their wedding! They want me to write their ceremony. Gah! But this post encourages me so. I'm breathing deep and will simply begin. I'm an essayist, however, not a poet, but still, your advice just to begin and let it all hang out no matter how cliched gives me hope. Your poem is stunning. I bet they cried. Did you?
We all cried, yes. And Polly, what you write will be perfect. It is already so. I am not a poet either! xoxo
😁❤️
What an exquisite poem! Sheer magic, so beautifully conveyed. A gift to the newlyweds and a gift for us ❤️Congratulations to all!!!
Jeannine--this is breathtakingly beautiful.Thank you for sharing it. May Max and Kaela relish the gravity and the dust and hold tight to the thread ❤️
Thank you so much, Sandra!
I'm moved to share this poem with you that I read at my daughter's wedding--it's by Patricia Monaghan who calls herself a "lay physicist."
Bell’s Theorem: An Epithalamion
Let us forget for a moment
this man and this woman.
Let us forget the sun and the water.
Let us forget the yellowing sky.
Let us forget the dimming stars.
Let us forget the half moon
yearning towards its fullness.
Let us forget everything
except the soil. If I reach out
and fill my hand with it,
it sifts away: dust, powder.
And yet we stand upon it,
this earthen floor, the dusty skin,
this which grounds, upholds, us all.
I could say that the soil is like
the time this man and woman
will spend together, the instants
that, fragmentary and invisible, will
sustain them. I could say that soil
is time, moments upon moments
upon moments, not one identical,
all alike, each necessary—
but I want the soil to be soil
in your minds, not a metaphor
for love or time. I want you
to imagine its millions of particles
scoured from pebbles
torn from mountains
by passing glaciers,
I want you to see not
moments on this beach,
not the light of this fair dawn,
not this loving man and woman,
but just this soil; within it is
a shard from an old woman’s pot,
a bit of mammoth bone, leaves
from a tree beneath which lovers stand.
And more: an atom from a hammer
that Jesus used, another from an apple
that Muhammad ate, yet another from
the soft blanket of the prince Siddhartha.
And even more: within this soil
is a fragment of an electron, split
apart in the center of the sun,
its other self somewhere across
the galaxy, boiling in vapor or
frozen in rock, and if I could
blow upon the fragment here,
could turn it in its tiny dance,
its distant other would turn
as well, still embraced
in an old inferno of connection—
After this day, when this man flies,
this woman flies. When he dances,
she dances. What touches one,
affects the other. No galaxy can separate
what has been joined here on this day.
Patricia Monaghan
It was / is an amazing piece, Jeannie. Feel free to reach out by email when things settle down. It's been nuts here, too! much love.
I will!! Hoping to catch up on email this week!
I adore your process -- and the product! Allowing what you'd 'forbidden' - the cliches - to enfold into the beauty, whilst seeking out the wild and fresh forms to express the big and the small of it. Gorgeous.
I also adore our comments here, like bread in our outstretched hands. Yummm...
Right? The comments here are exactly that. Thank you so much, Christine!
What a beautiful poem, and gift for Max and Kaela.
Super classy digs, too.
The process part is really helpful. I can see myself using it the next time I sit down to write about the thing I am writing about that is indeed a bit pesky, because there are things I haven't discovered yet, that I know I need to write into, and I see this being a good way to begin, the next time I begin, which I know that I will, because the idea/topic isn't ready to let me go yet.
Thank you, Monica! And yes, try the process. Essentially, it's back to permission, right? I'll be eager to hear how it goes!
Jeannine, I am in awe of your poem. How it begins acknowledging how hard it is to write a love poem - by beginning with what a love poem can’t use, the kind of words often found in love poems that make me cringe. Then you invite the reader into what words will make a true grounded song of love, and sketch out unique ways of talking about true love. There are so many lines I love
Thank you so much, Ray!!
This is absolutely stunning Jeannine thank you for sharing with us! And congratulations to your family! ❤️
Thank you, Flavia! That means a lot to me!
Jeanine - this is an extraordinary poem, one I will carry close to my heart (Ha ha said it!) Thank you for sharing your process too. It makes me feel better about the hours I spend noodling over a poem, moving a comma, an article, changing a line break...then putting most of them back, more often than not. Well, what else is there to do in the world?
Hahaha I love that you said it. Creative rules are made to be broken -- and, yes, what else is there to do in the world, indeed!
Congratulations to you and them, Jeannine! What a beautiful poem. “Love is the oldest confession and the highest offering” - and thus hard to write about, but you’ve done it wonderfully!
Thank you so much, Ramya ❤️