Most Like an Arch This Marriage
By John Ciardi
Most like an arch—an entrance which upholds
and shores the stone-crush up the air like lace.
Mass made idea, and idea held in place.
A lock in time. Inside half-heaven unfolds.
Most like an arch—two weaknesses that lean
into a strength. Two fallings become firm.
Two joined abeyances become a term
naming the fact that teaches fact to mean.
Not quite that? Not much less. World as it is,
what’s strong and separate falters. All I do
at piling stone on stone apart from you
is roofless around nothing. Till we kiss
I am no more than upright and unset.
It is by falling in and in we make
the all-bearing point, for one another’s sake,
in faultless failing, raised by our own weight.
The Collected Poems of John Ciardi (University of Arkansas Press, 1997)
6 years after our first date and I wouldn’t change a thing.
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I believe it was the Roman’s who invented the the arch (others had previously discovered post and lintels). I always wondered how they discovered the arch… Some one built 2 flimsy columns and they happened to fall toward each other and their equalized collapsing held them both up.
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Happy happy! Congrats!
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So sweet and so beautiful…lovely couple and picture! Happy Anniversary!
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Wow, 6 years!! Congratulations you two and here’s hoping for many, many more!!
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how sweet! congrats on six years! My husband and I have been together 11 years, married 8. A third of my life spent with the love of my life. How lucky are we??
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