To the Man I Married by Angela Manalang-Gloria
Still can’t find my book. Who knew copying poems by hand would be useful someday?
To the Man I Married
Angela Manalang-GloriaI
You are my earth and all the earth implies:
The gravity that ballasts me in space,
The air I breathe, the land that stills my cries
For food and shelter against devouring days.
You are the earth whose orbit marks my way
And sets my north and south, my east and west,
You are the final, elemented clay
The driven heart must turn to for its rest.If in your arms that hold me now so near
I lift my keening thoughts to Helicon
As trees long rooted to the earth uprear
Their quickening leaves and flowers to the sun,
You who are earth, O never doubt that I
Need you no less because I need the sky!II
I can not love you with a love
That outcompares the boundless sea,
For that were false, as no such love
And no such ocean can ever be.But I can love you with a love
As finite as the wave that dies
And dying holds from crest to crest
The blue of everlasting skies.
—
Updated 27 July 2012. Thanks, V.
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Lily Me doza
I learned this poem during my first year of high school (1975) together with Elizabeth Barret Browning’s How Do I Love Thee. To The Man I Married’s part II became my favorite & I can recite it even in my sleep up to the present. I found this piece today because I recited the part II for my 5 years old grandson who asked me about my favorite poem, searched the poem & read the part I to him. Thank you for bringing me back to my romantic youth..)
Randy
Part II of To The Man I Married quickly became a favorite of mine, and to this day, I can still quote it in my sleep. While she is still in the body, her spouse offers her the opportunity to rest.
T.
This is also one of my favourites by her. A lasting gem from the 1940s!
T.