To My Wife
William Luse
Like a woman, Nature’s beauty may overwhelm
(And her indifference, too.) Time’s flow,
Made endless by its Source, the dark realm
Beyond the blue—of these I would know,
Though all seem vast beyond our measure.
Her cycles fixed, next to you her secrets pale,
And certain weary facts constrain our pleasure
In her profusion, make her fruit go stale
On the tongue: her flowers shall bedeck my tomb.
But you are creation’s handmaid. All men save one
Have slept beneath your heart; without your womb—
Where my world was born—His will cannot be done:
One night the Holy Ghost one knee to a woman bent,
The earth’s fate poised upon her gracious consent.