Blessèd is her husband!

Dear,
Like Christ you do not splash about
in the shallows of me.
You well up from deep places,
somehow you make the deep places, even.
Like Christ, you are born again
in my heart, where you shine as a radiance
visibly unseen.
Like Christ, you made me yours
to save me
from the death I was growing to love.
Like Christ you speak to me of the thoughts
I am afraid to admit.
“Yes, God does love you”
you said – when I had been silent for too long,
when I had only wondered about God’s love
silently in my mind,
to Christ.
And as the scriptures teach,
the great blesses the lesser.
This is why you bless me
every day of my life, why
God hears your prayers for me
when I cannot pray for myself.
Like Christ your meekness, your sincerity
cause you to be overlooked.
People look at us and think that I,
with my ridiculous pretensions to
knowledge and competence
am the likelier of us two.
You knew this;
like Christ you were never jealous.

But the virtuous love you
(you are perhaps my only virtue)
and men of truth praise you.
And I, too, praise you now,
far later than I should.
I know of your patience,
the quiet grace that grows in you
unsuspected by yourself.
I know that you are serious in places
where I have carried fluff in my heart.
I know of your integrity,
I know that you labor for your father’s success
with an intensity that other men
lend to ambition, while you do it for love.
I know unspoken things that you have done
and forborne to do
for love.
This I know, and more,
and praise you.
Husband, mine own, my truer self,
bless me evermore.

The original poem, In Praise of a Husband, can be found here.