Poems to Read to Your Wife of Many Years

Come sit by me and bring your cup. I will read you a poem. pikselstock/Shutterstock

‘A Precious Wife Is Like Fine Wine’

By Martin Rizley

A precious wife is like fine wine, made mellow with the years, Aged in a barrel made of smiles and laughter, sighs and tears. Though time may etch its lines upon her once unfurrowed face, Time’s passage makes her well-refined in every wifely grace.

The outward jar, her earthen vessel, may show signs of age, But once outpoured, her character, mature and sweet and sage, Upon her husband’s palate leaves a pleasant aftertaste, Which makes him long to savor her with passions pure and chaste.

He finds her more intoxicating with the march of time, More fair than younger “nouveau” wives, a dozen for a dime. For in her eyes he sees the sparkle of a vintage soul, A deep, well-rounded character, full-bodied, rich and whole.

Each day he tastes a myriad of tantalizing notes While drinking in her ever-flowing love, on which he floats; At times, he tastes a hint of citrus in her tangy speech, At times, her words are smooth as cream or piquant like a peach.

Yes, like fine wine, a precious wife’s a blessing to procure: With you, my love, I feel like a most privileged connoisseur Who finds a vintage rare as gold and opens it one day, And takes one sip and says, “What taste! I’m simply blown away!”

With each new year your maturation makes me want you more. Don’t worry if the bottle fades, it’s you that I adore! You are the wine made from ripe fruit the sunshine swelled like leaven Beneath the blue Sicilian skies—then sent to me from heaven!

"Still Life With Red Wine" by Szlávics Alexa. Szlávics Alexa

Martin Rizley grew up in Oklahoma and in Texas, and has served in pastoral ministry both in the United States and in Europe. He is currently serving as the pastor of a small evangelical church in the city of Málaga on the southern coast of Spain, where he lives with his wife and daughter. Martin has enjoyed writing and reading poetry as a hobby since his early youth.

‘Gray’

By T.M. Moore

I feel a certain loyalty to gray. Gray days, gray sweaters, cars—gray everything. Gray soothes and calms. It doesn’t boast, or fling itself before you like some shades do (they know who they are). Gray broods, as if to say, “Let’s wait and see. Don’t get excited, sing the blues, or dance a jig. Just chill.” The thing is, gray is faithful, always there—no way gray ever lets you down. Gray won’t display, as if to seek attention. Gray will bring out other colors, let them show their zing and fleeting flair, so they can have their day. But mostly, gray adorns the tresses of the graycious lady who owns all my love.

"An Elderly Woman," by Archibald Skirving. Yale Center for British Art

T. M. Moore is Principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He and his wife and editor, Susie, make their home in the Champlain Valley of Vermont.

‘Endless Bloom’

By Angel L. Villanueva

She worries that her softest bloom is gone, The beauty that was hers in younger years. She reminisces days of early dawn, When flawless skin awoke to gleeful cheers.

She frets her steps have lost their sultry dance, Her slender figure time has cast away. She dreads her crown to white will soon advance, So feels it is in vain to hide her gray.

But I don’t see the years her mirror shows, Instead I view a bloom’s maturing glow. Her smile, her lively eyes and button nose, Are still like early days of long ago.

The mirror only sees her graying years, But I the graceful bloom beneath the tears.

"Young Woman Holding Flowers," by Albert Lynch. Colm Rowan

Angel L. Villanueva is a poet and a USPS mail carrier residing in Massachusetts.