Love Poems: Yum or Yuck?

My wife and I celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary last week. Well, "celebrated" might be a stretch--we went out to dinner at one of our favorite local joints, but no presents were exchanged or anything like that. We pretty much gave that up when we had kids and money seemed to get a lot tighter. I did, however, chew on the idea of sharing a poem about marriage or anniversaries or the like with my wife. I tried to find one, I really did, but...I don't know, maybe I was being too particular. I just couldn't find the right one for us.

I am partial to "Touch Me" by Stanley Kunitz. But I've shared that with her before. I was hoping to find something new. And it couldn't just be any ol' love poem...it had to be right for us, you know? That, I think, is the hardest part.

I wish I could tell you that I made a gift of the perfect love poem and could share it with you at this point, but I couldn't come up with anything. Maybe next year. And I think I decided that "love poems"just aren't my thing. They don't do anything for me, not the mushy ones at least. I guess I'm partial to the more subtle poems about love, a description that I believe definitely applies to "Touch Me." Or to a poem like "For What Binds Us" by Jane Hirschfield.

Here's one that I found that I like, but I'm just not sure how much I like it yet. Sometimes there are poems that need to marinate for awhile with me before I can really connect with them. See what you think:

Tree Marriage

BY WILLIAM MEREDITH

In Chota Nagpur and Bengal

the betrothed are tied with threads to   

mango trees, they marry the trees   

as well as one another, and   

the two trees marry each other.

Could we do that some time with oaks   

or beeches? This gossamer we   

hold each other with, this web   

of love and habit is not enough.  

Please read the rest of the poem at The Poetry Foundation.