10th anniversary, or: Chaya Margarita

Posted on by ben Alexander

The poem below was my gift to my wife on the occasion of our 10th anniversary on the Hebrew calendar, which is tonight (the 1st of Elul). It’s actually two separate poems, as you shall see, because I wrote it as an acrostic of my wife’s name, which is Chaya Margarita.

  • Chaya is a Hebrew name, which means life or soul in biblical Hebrew, and the ‘CH’ at the beginning is actually a hard ‘Ḥ’ sound, which does not exist in English. In Hebrew, it’s one letter: ‘ח’ (heth).
  • Margarita is a name in Latin and Eastern European languages, originally derived from Persian, meaning ‘pearl’, a cognate with the Sanskrit मञ्जरी (mañjarī) meaning ‘pearl’ or ‘cluster of blossoms’.
*click*

Once I decided to write an acrostic poem, which felt touchingly personal to me, I decided to look for poetic forms that matched the number of letters in Chaya (5) and Margarita (9). My intention was for the two poems to flow as one – so I looked for two forms with the same meter.

Ultimately, I settled upon a ‘Sicilian Quintain’ (5) and a ‘Spenserian Stanza’ (9), both of which employ iambic pentameter, with the exception of the Spenserian Stanza’s final line, which is written in iambic hexameter. The first poem focuses upon my beloved herself, and the second poem relates to our marriage.

After I’d completed the poem(s), I used Canva to put my work on a nice background with an an attractive font (not a strength of mine). After exploring several different alternatives, I settled upon a light purple theme with some green leaves on it – purple is my wife’s favorite color, and [dark forest] green is mine. Also, the frame I purchased for the gift itself is green, which matches those leaves and draws out their color.

Chaya

Sicilian Quintain

Could there be living a woman kinder?
Having searched for years, I must conclude not.
Angelic eyes - my daily reminder -
Yestern good deeds she so humbly forgot.
Always awed that Someone helped me find her.

Margarita

Spenserian Stanza

Marriage ~ this holy, lifelong endeavor,
At the root of our young family tree.
Rearing our dearest daughter together,
Gifting courage to face all that could be,
As love's binding us, as embrace sets free.
Reflecting upon these years we have shared,
I think of some tests we couldn't foresee.
Though lovers can never be quite prepared,
Adoration these heartstrings in union ensnared.

77 thoughts on “10th anniversary, or: Chaya Margarita”

  4. Oh my godd Missed this post. Ben happy marriage anniversary because your bond will last longer than anything. Personally the poems were really touching. She liked it right!? Righttt?:)

    1. Thanks so much 🤗

      BTW, please feel free to call me by my first name, which is David. The word ‘ben’ just means ‘son of’ in Hebrew. My pen name is confusing, I know!

      💕
      David

  5. Ohhh.. touching tribute to your 10 years together with your mated soul..Did she love it?? Silly question, but just wanted to hear you to say it:) Mazel Tov to you both! Alf Mabrook!🌟💐

  6. Aaawwwww! That was so beautiful! I’m sure she would have loved it!
    I love peculiar and unique names. And your wife’s name is the most beautiful one’s I heard in the recent days.

    I pray that you celebrate many anniversaries together! 💞🎈

Leave a Reply

Please log in using one of these methods to post your comment:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s