Three Poems and a Song for Ruth on Mother’s Day

In the Spring of 2011, it was time to get my left hip replaced. Genetics (I was told by an Irish Aunt that I inherited the Swedish genes for bad joints), along with a horrific head-on collision in 2002 greatly accelerated the replacement of that hip. In April of 2011, I had to have the femur nail removed from my left hip (a souvenir of the car accident). That was a complicated recovery. Finally, in mid June of 2011 I had the hip replaced only to find within a week I had a MRSA infection. Long story short, the infection never went away and in the beginning of August I had to have the artificial hip removed. Since, I was allergic to the majority of antibiotics that kill MRSA (Vankamycin shut down my kidneys), it took the contagious disease doctor a while to find a combination of antibiotics that would kill the MRSA infection. In the meantime, I would have to go in for more surgery to drain the infection, a total of 4 surgeries on the same spot. Since I had no hip during this time, with the aid of a walker, I hopped around the house, from bed to bathroom, bathroom to my chair, chair to bathroom, and so on. I was without a hip from the beginning of August to the end of January 2012, when I received the second hip.

It was Christmas 2012, I was on medical leave from church ministry, and I didn’t know what I could give my beloved Ruth for a Christmas present. I ended up doing two things: 1) shaved my mustache (she always hated that mustache), and 2) I began writing poems about our courtship, our wedding, and the family we created together. I called that first installment of poems, “The Book Of Ruth”. I combined those early poems with some photos of Ruth and I and our kids, made a PDF of it and sent it to my daughter-in-law, Olivia to print and put into a binder to give to Ruth for Christmas. Since that Christmas in 2011, I have continued to compose poems for Ruthie and add them to the collection.

Two of the poems I have placed here cover the early part of our marriage. The first is about the time in which my teaching position had been cut, and we were homeless with a 1 1/2 year old son, and a newly born son. The second about how we coped with little money, and still managed to court one another. The third from a more recent time. Ruthie is an RN and has worked the night shift as a nurse from the time our fourth child was born. That way she could be home with the kids during the day, and I would be home with the kids throughout the night and get them off to school. Many times, as she would be walking in the door, I would be going off to work. And, when I would be coming home at night after a 12 hour day (church work goes from morning to evening), she would be leaving to go to work.

AT HOME WITHOUT A HOME

The semi-trailer sits at the farm,
a gift from your dad,
holding everything we own,
except some of our clothes,
and that of our sons,
and Pampers.
Homeless, my pride beaten down,
humility or is it humiliation, it’s master.
Your pride is not a self-consuming
passion, the first of an
ever-growing realization
that I’m not the educator of our family
but a merely a student
learning at your feet.
Your pride is measured
in our sons, in our marriage,
our homelessness not a
defeat, but a mere fact.
Your own family’s past,
family falling upon family
during times of difficulty and duress,
defines what is important.
Shuffling between families’ homes
an inconvenience of love,
not acts of desperation.
As long as we and our sons are together
no longer is home narrowly defined
to structures above or below ground,
but only defined by relationship.
You are at home in our homelessness.

(c) 2012, “The Book Of Ruth”, Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.

THE COURTING NEVER ENDS

Two weeks before
we share our vows,
in my Miller Hospital
x-ray scrubs, I sit,
a lull in the activity
of the morning exams
with Helen, a fellow
wheel chair jockey.
Closely she examines me,
“Do you want to have
a happy marriage?” I
nod in affirmation.
“Do you know the secret?”
“No,” slips quietly from
my lips, “Do you want
to know?” “Yes, of
course.” Her eyes
flash behind her
glasses, accentuating
her words, “The courting
never ends. The
courting never ends.”

She reads the puzzlement
that paints my face,
with exclamation points
behind each word
she emphasizes, “You
must never stop
dating your wife.”
Stories of Friday night
steak dinners, with
her deceased lover
of many years,
during a shared
lifetime peppered
with want and plenty.
Her words repeated
until locked in my
subconscious, our
brief, intense encounter
interrupted by the
needs of another
hospital patient.

I sit here with you
on our date night,
our baby in a high
chair, our two
very young sons
at their places
around the small
rectangular table
in our kitchen.
Two Dairy Bar pizzas,
a pepperoni for the
boys, the supreme
for you and me,
Gerbers for the baby,
a poor substitute
for steak on a
Friday night, but
one meal you will
not cook, just enjoy.
Date night
is not what it
once was, but
our love requires
some small gesture,
even in poverty,
of just being with
each other, two
lovers with the
evidence of their
love around them,
enjoying a piece
of locally made
pizza, with the words
of an old German
x-ray aide echoing
from long before,
“The courting never
ends. The courting
never ends.”

(c) 2015,”The Book Of Ruth”, Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.

AT 2 AM – A POEM FOR RUTH

Quietly
you enter,
and with feline
stealth, pick your
way through the
darkness of
our bedroom.
My senses,
honed
over the years
like radar to
hear the pings
of children’s cries,
pukey wretching,
and troubled
hearts and spirits
detects you
as you silently
remove your clothing,
the wisp of your
nightgown falls
with a slight breeze
over your
outstretched arms,
you slip within the
sheets. “Are you
sick?” I quietly
ask, as I turn
my warm body
to embrace the
coolness of yours.
“They were overstaffed,”
you softly reply,
and I slip contentedly
back to sleep,
our marriage bed
complete.

(c) 2015, “The Book Of Ruth”, Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.

Last but not least, I have composed much music dedicated to this incredible woman. For our wedding, I composed a song. Over the years, the song got lost, but I remembered the melody vividly. In the Spring of 2016 as the anniversary of our first date drew near (May 29th), I reset that melody into a new piano composition and then gave it to Ruth. I would like to say that she remembered that song from our wedding. However, many years had passed since our wedding, a little over 41 years at that time, and it sounded brand new to her. Granted, I did add a middle section to the song that wasn’t there in the original.

The primary melody retains the great passion I feel toward Ruth. It starts simply in the lower register like one lover expressing his love to his intended. It is restated in the higher register, his lover reciprocating his affection than moves to a middle section where the couples love for each grows until the primary melody returns in chordal octaves, a passionate expression of love consummated, then peace as the lovers begin life together.

The middle section is the dance of the couple as they work, have children, raise their children, and the demands of life attempts to pull them in all directions. However, in the midst of the hustle and bustle of that dance, the love and the passion the couple have for one another does not fade as the primary melody is joined into the dance.

The song concludes to a simple restatement of the love that began many years before, intact, and filled with nothing but gratitude of a life together. Here is the song.