The Liminal Man

Writings of a man born between worlds

Winter Love

December 10, 2006

That winter night when snow upon the ground
lay thick, we joined our hands, exchanging vows.
And now five winters gone the sixth comes round,
and winter’s snow begins to gather on our brows.
The winter wind that froze Big Cedar Creek
beside the church five years ago still blows,
but now its creeping fingers try to sneak
and snuff the love that warm within us glows.
It’s bitter cold, that wind that blows without;
more bitter still with cold our hearts become
when gusts blow through the chinks and swirl about.
But still I will rejoice; for fingers numb
from cold will ever thaw before the fire,
and He who lit and keeps our flame will never tire.

Notes:

I wrote this for H— on the eve of our fifth anniversary during an early (and now entirely unremembered) rough patch in our marriage. That we are in a happily devoted marriage after almost twenty-one years is not a testimony to either our character or the especial durability of our love for one another. It is a testament to divine mercy. I cannot prove that God preserved our marriage through troubles, that He is interested in our marriage at all, or that He even exists. What I know is that after much prayer by many people, a very specific sequence of events beyond our control occurred at a critical point in 2016, and in a two-week span, those events completely changed the course of our relationship. I also know that throughout our relationship, the life of faith has been entirely integral to how we have both conceived what marriage ought to be. (TLM, Dec. 10, 2022)

In preparing to post, I have very lightly edited and corrected the text from the hand-written original.

That winter night — Dec 31. I heartily recommend a New Year’s Eve wedding. The whole day feels festive because the whole world is celebrating; there’s plenty for the kids to do and people they can stay with; all the restaurants have something fun going on; you automatically have the next day off from work; and you’ll never forget your anniversary.

Big Cedar Creek — a stream that flows close to where we were married.

beside the church — William Wordsworth’s “Daffodils” (a.k.a. “I wandered lonely as a cloud”) is one of my mother’s favorite poems. She made me memorize it when I was a child. The fifth line of that poem begins with the words “Beside the lake,” and my mind reminds me of that ever time I read this line.

will ever thaw — the language is aspirational; it is the language of hope. Some frostbitten fingers don’t thaw, and some love does grow cold forever.

He who lit and keeps our flame — reminiscent of the man behind the wall in Interpreter’s house in The Pilgrim’s Progress. Looking back on this poem fifteen years later, this line is truly one of the best explanations I can offer for why our marriage is happy and fulfilling after more than two decades.