happy happy joy joy

[adelaidesean]

Today is a very good day. It's our first wedding anniversary, and we're heading for the hills tonight, as we did exactly 52 weeks ago, to enjoy some quiet time. We'll also party like it's 1932 by taking this most timely quiz:



Thanks to Tiabla, Amanda and I can now find out exactly how well our marriage is going. I swear I've never talked of the efficiency of my stenographer, and to the best of my knowledge Amanda has never worn red nail polish, so we should be okay. Whew!

You can view the entire quiz here. Fun and games!

ETA: Don't read Rob Shearman's excellent short story "Grappa" the night before a wedding anniversary. It will seriously mess with your head.

Comments

[seanwilliams.livejournal.com]

Wonderful. Thank you!

(I'd never heard of Kuan Tao-shêng before. Looking her up in the web, I see that she was one of the pioneers of bamboo painting as well as a great poet. What a fascinating woman she must have been.)

[murasaki-1966.livejournal.com]

I've got the Orchid Boat on order. I have an interest in Chinese poetry, and women's poetry in particular. There are a lot of fascinating Chinese women in history (and now, too). We need to hear more about them.

I actually first read this in John Marsden's collection For Weddings and a Funeral. We got all of our wedding poems out of this book.

BTW: Happy Birthday for the 23rd. Iain and I will be in Tassie and probably nowhere near a computer (I hope).

Best wishes to you both. Have a great time.

Here's another poem by John Ciardi (just because I can)

MEN MARRY WHAT THEY NEED

Men marry what they need. I marry you,
morning by morning, day by day, night by night,
and every marriage makes this marriage new.

In the broken name of heaven, in the light
that shatters granite, by the spitting shore,
in air that leaps and wobbles like a kite,

I marry you from time and a great door
is shut and stays shut against wind, sea, stone,
sunburst, and heavenfall. And home once more

inside our walls of skin and struts of bone,
man-woman, woman-man, and each the other,
I marry you by all dark and all dawn

and have my laugh at death.
Why should I bother the flies about me? Let them
buzz and do.
Men marry their queen, their daughter, or their mother

by hidden names, but that thin buzz whines through:
where reasons are no reason, cause is true.
Men marry what they need. I marry you.

[seanwilliams.livejournal.com]

You've got a very good memory. :-)

And a wonderful taste in poetry. Thanks again, sincerely.

[murasaki-1966.livejournal.com]

The memory and the taste for poetry is my dad's fault. He loves poetry and read huge screeds of it to me as a kid. Never get me started on reciting because I can go for hours......

I have to admit something though. While I remembered both poems, I didn't type them out from memory. That's what the web is for....