When my husband and I got engaged, my mother gave me a coffee mug that said "Kissin' don't last...cookin' do." Since I was only 19 years old, she was obvisouly trying to warn me that the fun bits of a relationship (like kissing!) don't endure with as much stability as the not so fun bits (like cooking!) I was not pleased with the gift at that time, and now, more than 30 years later, I have to say she was wrong. Kissing does last. It's different of course - it's laden with history for one thing. It carries the memories of all the wonderful, heartbreaking, angry, delicious moments that have occurred while you've been setting up housekeeping, raising children and pets, working, cleaning, buying groceries and cooking! It's just as poet Steve Scafidi writes in his poem Prayer for A Marriage -kisses now may not be the "first wild surprising ones," but they are the ones that make the "sadnesses we have known go away for awhile."
Prayer for A Marriage
Steve Scafidi
For Kathleen
When we are old one night and the moon
arcs over the house like an antique
China saucer and the teacup sun
follows somewhere far behind
I hope the stars deepen to a shine
so bright you could read by it
if you liked and the sadnesses
we will have known go away
for awhile - in this hour or two
before sleep - and that we kiss
standing in the kitchen not fighting
gravity so much as embodying
its sweet force, and I hope we kiss
like we do today knowing so much
good is said in this primitive tongue
from the wild first surprising ones
to the lower dizzy ten thousand
infintely slower ones - and I hope
while we stand there in the kitchen
making tea and kissing, the whistle
of the teapot wakes the neighbors.