The Only (Decent) Poem I've Ever Written
Today marks 14 years of marriage for my wife and me. A few years ago, on her 30th birthday, I wrote her a poem... which is to this day still the only halfway decent poem I've ever written. I share it today in honor of the occasion, as a small way of "calling her blessed" (Prov 31:28).
A Poem for Leigh On Her 30th Birthday
A poet I’m not known to beThough writing’s natural to meAn essay or a speech is normalBut rhyme and rhythm seem so formal!
What is it, then, that makes a manUnknown for rhyme pick up his penAnd turn his back on lucid proseA thoughtful poem to compose?
It must be love, the skeptic saysAnd right he is. For I confessMy heart is captive to a girlAnd in her orbit spins my world.
Yet no trite love story is this,No hollow plot or one-night blissThis is the surest of all loveOrdained and kept by God above.
Eight years ago our eyes first metLove’s flower then was planted, YetSome time would pass before it grewBut even in those days, we knew.
Six years and more we’ve now been wedAnd each night when I lie in bedThe things which, nascent then, I treasuredI cherish now in fuller measure.
For godliness comes not from naughtAnd character cannot be bought;The culture’s beauties rise and fall,But my fair bride outshines them all.
What man would not his money give,Or pledge his soul, his life to liveWith one who loves to be aliveAnd on companionship does thrive?
Who would not be the first in line(If so bequeathed the God Divine)To take from Him a wife of mirthWhose laugh can ease the pains of Earth?
And would we not call him a fool,Who’d send his children off to schoolWithout the guidance of a wifeWho’d help them learn by living life?
And in a culture starved for trust,Where loyalty’s more “might” than “must,”A lover who is faithful, pureMust be a gift from heaven, sure.
When sin and brokenness aboundAnd truthful sources can’t be foundGod’s greatest gift would be a wifeWho on the Bible stakes her life.
Though feminism’s voice is shrillCreation’s rules are truer still.Would he who seeks his God’s designNot want submissive love to find?
As history and time do tellA healthy home makes children well.What better woman could there beThan one with this priority?
And what of beauty? It is fineBut good is she who knows the lineBetween what’s pretty and what’s vainHer worth and beauty will remain.
My wife is all these things and more,And with each passing day, her storeOf wisdom and of honor growsIt blesses everyone she knows.
And so, on this, the day that marksThree decades since her life did startI laud her with the poet’s artAnd recommit to her my heart.
She is the fairest of the fair,A life as one, in Christ, we shareMay God who has our union madeIncrease her joy with each decade!