“
Beginning at dawn— with faint pink streaks
across the sky— may the days be long….
Bright-white and blazing, breaking
waves gild the sea at sunrise:
from our bed on the bedrock
I rise up singing:
this the song of confidence—
I am a husband….
Boys and girls splash at the sun
all-dazzling on the water
to catch the sun and clutch it—
and flowers oftentimes possess
a floating transparency
you can see but cannot touch...
tempered by cliffs
and the inhumanness of rock
I’ll stay, she promises,
to watch your flower set
beyond and go out, shining,
of my own horizon….
A pair of butterflies in sunlight
leap in breezy flutters of flight
high above the seed-heads:
sun-bright morning
she heralds the people
with fountains of melody
gurgling from her voice
in youth gathering siblings
and elders together
—to fly away with tears….
Grappling in the sweat of the ring
you fall down on the net—
a white-light kind of dying…
to be on the bottom
in a world full of others
and to choose it for my place:
until your window-frame be
palace-clouds and glassy:
I’ll wear the ring….
Then, when all was silence between us
and we were to one another
only a presence in the room—
still I knew she was my wife:
for I could recognize
a relation there
of age more than just
the day I was born...
and now here we are standing
a pair meeting face to face….
”
”