Tuesday, July 04, 2006

Wedding

for S., who gets married today. Wishing her every happiness.

The Wedding

“Permit me voyage, love, into your hands…”

- Hart Crane, ‘Voyages’

Every wedding is an afterthought.

The real choice begins elsewhere:
In some inaccessible cavern of the heart
Where love melts like a slow glacier
And two springs of Yes flow
Into the mutual valley,
Join in a silver kiss.

The decision
A singing stream,
Pure as water.

All else is descent:
Waterfalls of joy
Tempt the precipice into approval,
Cascades of feeling
Overleap the most obdurate stones;
And the light dances like butterflies
Over the acknowledged river
Making tributaries of friends,
Turning gravity to resolution.

Then onward, to where the world
Is measured in horizons,
And distance, breathless with its own daring,
Opens its arms in welcome.

Who would have thought
The journey to togetherness
Would take them so far?

Past forests of doubt
That finger them as they pass,
Past fields ripening slowly
To autumn promises,
And cities of tradition and detail
Whose traffic of questions
Leaves them muddied,
Unclear.

Silted with days,
They outgrow the speed of their beginnings,
Meander patiently
Through this unyielding landscape,
Clinging only to their intent
And to the slow drift of their daydreams,
Lazy as boats.

And then, at last,
The private fanning into public,
The delta of this final ceremony,
Where the soft lapping of their hearts
Is lost amid a larger roar,
And the seagulls wheel over them
Like blessings,
And they empty themselves
Into a more endless adventure,
To the loud acclaim of the waves.

Every wedding is an afterthought.
We celebrate
The end of anticipation,
The beginning of promise.

- 4th July 2006

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Lovely. *sniff*
esp. Love this bit..

"Silted with days,
They outgrow the speed of their beginnings,
Meander patiently
Through this unyielding landscape,
Clinging only to their intent"

how true! the key is to keep the waters flowing...most end up stagnating (which is when you start dam-ming the institution)

Anonymous said...

gosh thats beautiful... love the analogy.. :))

Swathi Sambhani aka Chimera said...

wish marriages were as beautiful as ur poem..

Anonymous said...

congratulations to S!

A lovely poem.

''Every wedding is an afterthought.
We celebrate
The end of anticipation,
The beginning of promise.''

Loved the end,no, its the beginning rather...

30in2005 said...

If you wrote that poem you should just give up your day job sit at home and churn out a book. Absolutely stunning - and I don't even like poetry!

Pareshaan said...

Every wedding is an afterthought - very well put indeed.

Falstaff said...

anon: Thanks. It puts the Rhett Butler speech in a whole new perspective, doesn't it?

pseudonym: Thanks

swathi: Thanks. And yes, let's hope S's is, at any rate.

confused: Ah, that bit. I just put that in as an afterthought. :-).

30in2005: Yes, I keep telling myself that as well.

pareshaan: Thanks