On Being a Wife

1.

Elisabeth Sonrel

You have found my spirit self,
in dreams she appears to you -
beautiful, mature, keeper of
profound wisdom.

Yet I love that you do not
become trapped by appearances
even in the material world,
that you love me because
you have heard my Venus laugh,
seen the rare joyful spark
in my un-made-up eyes.

You truly make me feel like
a delicate flower,
living fragrance and grace.
So you hear me singing,
whispering, melting into a space
where I know I am loved,
deeply.

2.
The wife's strength is in persuasion
instead of violent tears, cruel words,
in a gentle concern and an earnest
yearning to understand
what exactly is the magic spell
that breaks the hypnotism
of his dark side, penetrates
through the gloom and into
the imprisoned light.
You are not here to change him -
you are here to awaken
his courage, his honour, his faith in life
by your soft, vulnerable trust in him.

Max Nonnenbruch

No one can be closer to him
than his wife
no one else can be allowed
to see his depths, heartbreak, pain.
Wives, listen:
This must not go beyond you.
You are the sacred keeper of his
difficult life, of his tears
that the world can never know even exist.

In some marriages,
the woman, the feminine
has lost her sacredness
in masculine toil, gossip, bitterness,
smoldering resentment, an abyss between
where two hearts should meet.

Wives, listen:
Do not air his dirty laundry.

That is where you
perhaps unintentionally but so tragically
throw into the wind his strength,
compassion, trust, faith, love in you and his life.
In one little moment, you put in motion
a destruction of what
was built with such labour.
Do not destroy the heart of the one you love.
Be a muse, a kind sacred spirit of hope,
a whisperer of better things to come,
an endless space of understanding,
perfuming the once so bleak a path of his
with forgiveness, joy.