What I Am

What I Am

This is another of the poems that I have written for Analia's Christmas card. I've never been real sure what I was trying to say in this one. Oh, I know what the meaning of the poem is but why I wrote it is another question. I think that there is a certain amount of insecurity lurking in me that sneaks out from time to time. But I think it goes deeper than that. At the time of writing this I have been married to Analia for 11 years and I still find it hard to believe. For the first couple of years I was sure that she had mistaken me for somebody else. But then I came to realize that there were things in me that she saw that no one else had ever seen. Not even me. Perhaps that is why I never wrote a poem until after we were married. In order for me to write a poem, it is generally necessary for me to let a little of myself show. And until I met her I never had the courage to do that. What ever it is she sees in me, I'm glad because she helps me to see it too and helps me to share it with others.

Gale L. Wolfenbarger
26 May 1988

What I Am

What would I see if I looked through the eyes
Of the one whose life I share?
Would I see the man that I think I am
Or some other image there?

Perhaps a king or a mighty lord
With a scepter in his hand.
Does she see in me what she wants to see
Or does she love me for what I am?

To look at one and see the good,
The noble and the great.
To have a mind that's free from guilt,
A heart that's pure and chaste.

To look at life and see the pain
And still see beauty in a smile,
To brush the hair that's gray with age
And dry the tear of the child.

The things that count when all is done
Are not the things we've seen.
It's how we've looked at what we saw
And if our hands are clean.

Yes, life has a way of proving us all
Through the sifting of it's sand
And the question I ask as I look in her eyes,
Do you love me for what I am?

Gale L. Wolfenbarger
December 1983