Grand opera

Today is May 19, 2019, and I just realized I never posted this here. I'm back-dating it to the date I got a few suggested improvements from Marie, which I have incorporated.

The context was ... well it grew out of another one of those long, tangled phone calls with Marie where she was lamenting that in one respect or other we don't have a perfect, fairy-tale romance. And once again I sat with her on the phone and then tried to suggest that no, we don't, and that's a good thing. Later on I worked it into a sonnet as below.

For reference, it's not that she does this a lot. She's not (well ... no longer) as high-strung that way as Wife or D used to be. But it still worries at her from time to time.

Anyway, here's how I tried to express it.






For you and me there’s no grand opera staged,
No fairy tales are told, no epics sung —
Because we’re both securely middle aged,
And songs like that are all about the young.

So I am I, and not a handsome prince;
And you are not a blushing ingenue.
The weakness of those girls, though, makes you wince,
And princes get no scriptless things to do.

So let us write a story on our own:
A tale of second acts, in medias res,
Of tumults weathered, other loves long gone,
Of patient smiles and wrinkles in the face.

Our messy lives don’t shine with fairy dew,
And yet our love is every bit as true.