Epithalamium—A Wedding Poem in Three Parts

1. Duet: Bride and Groom

Adam and Eve shocked a sadly betrayed God
by hauling laughter up from choked lungs
in dust-blown exile. So your laughter sings,
sings from your exile—sings to mine—your news
of the sheer, soaring audacity of our fall.
So thank you, God,
for the giddy shapes of beauty
that scatter the chill dangers of perfection,
breaking us open a grand space for love.

2. The Groom, to the Bride

Your violin voice, even when still untuned,
unrosined, and roughly bowed by broken sleep:
your morning voice—this imperfection lifts
the merely lovely up to the loving, the loved;
breaks God’s planned perfection down to a world,
down to knowing your touch, down to song,
and you there, laughing across the breakfast toast.

3. The Bride, to the Groom

Again, the familiar mystery of this love:
Your ‘cello voice, that strung, stroked wood
that sings awake, in the kiss of the wood’s voice,
my own listening—resonance that lifts
your humming strings and my own strung veins
to pure duet—
that is the beauty, the stroke of song on song.
It is all I need of music—
All the rest is nuance, interpretation,
filling the margins of your sacred text.