Janet Kuypers reads the original poem "Seven and Seven, plus Eighteen" on Christmas day, 12/25/07 on a boat in the Galapagos Islands, to her husband, John
This is the original poem:
Seven and Seven, plus Eighteen
I know I'm supposed to be the creative one
but I started my schooling in computer science engineering
if I ever write anything,
it's not creative,
it's what makes sense which is what I feel
I say I'm a writer
I say I'm an artist
but I haven't known what to say to you
and if I wrote something
it would be too straight-forward
but I want to do this for you
I want you to understand
and all I can think
is that if I were a painter
I'd be Michelangelo
and paint my love for you
like it was the Sistine Chapel, our hands touching in the sky,
like it was our Last Supper
if I were a painter
I'd give you something
that would be cherished,
it may deteriorate with each passing century
but as time wore on
and oil paint peeled away
it would show more layers
of my love for you
what am I saying
painting like Michelangelo
I'd probably paint like Jackson Pollock
and throw splashes of paint on a canvas
and call the dripping lines of splattered paint
art
maybe I'm not an artist
but when I met you, I asked you questions
I wanted to learn about you
I wanted to soak you in
so maybe I'm not a writer
maybe I'm not an artist
maybe I'm an observer
like an astronomer
looking out into the universe
trying to understand what makes everything
everything
what makes my tie to you so concrete
like my father and my grandfather's construction business
like my brother's desire to design buildings
you wondered why I love tall buildings
reaching up towards the sky
maybe my tie is so much more concrete than art
I travel around the world
learning different histories, different cultures
I fly in airplanes
I jump from airplanes
I pilot airplanes
trying to get closer to the stars
and when I'm on the ground
I admire the tall buildings,
reaching up toward infinity
so maybe I'm meant to be an astronomer
studying something colder than ice, far away
Pluto is an aberrant ball of ice
I don't know, I was taught it was a planet
but then they told me no,
it's not
it's just a ball of ice from the Kuiper Belt
the Kuiper Belt
isn't it ironic
they say it wasn't what I wanted
but I wanted to learn
and it's still a part of me
#
we were outside at night in fair hope
to see the intricate quilt of stars in the sky
and lying on the grass
the stars over us, blanketing us smothering me in my love for you
I rested my head on your shoulder
and fell asleep with you, under the stars
molecule by molecule,
we originate from stars
and the stars were our blanket
as a deer came walking feet away from us, not afraid
and now I know we are all linked,
our bodies formed from stardust
but outer space
is a violent place
violent explosions create the stars
and our earth has earthquakes,
avalanches, volcanoes
tsunamis, typhoons
and in all this madness
somehow I've found you
I'm not a writer,
I'm not a journalist
I'm an observer
and I came to you asking questions
and somehow broke your hardened shell
yes, in all this madness
somehow I found you
I've survived the thunder
and the lightning
the blizzards,
the hurricanes
and the tornadoes
I've lived through the drought
I've survived it all
I've even been dealt a near fatal blow from humanity
and it's as if the Gods are paying me back for everything
by giving me
you
and with you I have walked on the tops of glaciers crouching down from the violent winds looking down into the beginning of time
with you I have watched solar storms
and the geomagnetic aberrations of the Aurora Borealis
from near the Arctic Circle
and what has man done
that you can see from outer space?
well, I believe I even held your hand
as we walked along the Great Wall of China
as I said before,
I'm only an observer
but now I can't imagine
seeing the world without you
and with these observations,
I thee wed
because I will never let you go
#
I heard a country song
about a man who died
and was watching his love from above
and I thought, if one of us left this earth
would they watch from above
and wail 'til we could be together again?
once our spirits found each other
I wonder if our spirits could hold hands
the way we always do when we're together
making sure not to let each other go
I've seen galaxies collide
I've seen comets smash into planets
I've seen supernovae and the death of stars
and in all of that, I still found you
as I said, I'm only an observer
but I've found what I've been looking for
so I'll tighten my grip on your hand
because I don't ever want to let you go
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