To My Sister on Her Day
To my sister on her day,
On whom my love long has shone:
May your wish and world be one,
Your want your wind, your will your way.
So may you find happiness
In being loved and loving well,
So long as choice and chance may tell,
Turning time to tenderness.
Each day may both of you again
Rejoice in what this day you've done.
Today Is the Wedding
Today is the wedding
Of more than just two.
We always do something
Far more than we do.
Today is the birth
Of a new family:
One that will fashion
The one I will be.
And so as we welcome
A new man and wife,
I welcome a father*
Whose love changed my life.
I welcome a future
Together as three:
My mother and father
United with me.
*Feel free to change to "mother."
We Are a Family Now
We are a family now, a whole,
Of which you are a part,
And you are just as much my child
As any in my heart.
I do not love you differently,
Nor would I give up less
Of all that life has given me
To bring you happiness.
There is no limit to my love,
No boundary you might cross,
No price you might be asked to pay,
No need to fear its loss.
We are now one, the four of us,
Windows of one home.
As long as I have life and breath,
You'll never be alone.
Wedding Vows
1. Because I love and cherish you,
And want to fill your heart with grace,
These things I promise I will do:
I vow to tell you what is true
That you might touch whom you embrace
Because I love and cherish you.
I vow to put aside my view
And paint my portrait from your place:
These things I promise I will do.
And when you must your dreams renew,
I vow to give you ample space
Because I love and cherish you.
I vow to make our battles few
And love the child behind the face:
These things I promise I will do.
And that we might make one of two,
Too deep to know, too vast to trace,
Because I love and cherish you,
These things I promise I will do.
2. These things I promise I will do
That life may grant you ample grace
Because I love and cherish you:
I vow to treasure what is true
That I might touch whom I embrace:
These things I promise I will do.
I'll build a garden in your view
That with sweet fruit will stone replace
Because I love and cherish you.
I vow to love each day anew,
For love must dance through time and space:
These things I promise I will do.
I vow to make your terrors few
And then with you those demons face
Because I love and cherish you.
And now, as we make one of two,
A passage we cannot retrace,
These things I promise I will do
Because I love and cherish you.
You Are Our Knight in Shining Armor
You are our knight in shining armor,
Pilgrim of our plea,
The Atlas for our wounded world,
Our rescuer at sea.
You are the pillar of our hopes,
The deep bass of our song,
The strength that underlies our strength,
The calm for which we long.
You came into our house of dreams
And turned it into truth,
Entering at just the point
Where yearning shatters youth.
What could motivate someone
To bear another's load
But that most beautiful of lights,
The inner lamp of love.
Your Love Must Be an Ocean and a Stream
Your love must be an ocean and a stream,
A song and silence, pilgrimage and end.
It will change as will and passion bend,
Yet, changeless, be what life can only seem.
Love remains the night beyond the dream,
The choice that cannot choose but reason rend,
The fact that makes a fortune of a friend
And will the travesties of time redeem.
So flow with pleasure down the mountainside
Through years and years of paradise and pain,
Choosing as you change to stay combined.
For there is something underneath the ride
That you need only turn to, to attain,
A grace so beautiful it stops the wind.
Your Presence Is Requested
Your presence is requested at
A moment of transcendence.
The mystery of two as one
Requires your attendance.
You will witness something more
Than ordinary life:
The transformation of two souls
Into a man and wife.
Your Wedding Is a Morning and an Evening
Your wedding is a morning and an evening:
Just as the sun rises on your love,
Halfway round the table it will set
Upon the fields and faces you have known.
So life turns, and so our fond rejoicing
Has always the sweet pungency of time.
We come and go within a tidal longing
That sweeps our hearts beyond what we can be.
So beautiful a moment is forever!
We are in awe, and know not what it means.
Time parts around the rock of celebration
On which we stand to wish you joy and love. |
To My Sister on Her Wedding Day
To my sister on her wedding day:
Old memories are a movie starring you.
Much of me was shaped by our relation,
Years and years of being one of two.
So like two trees alone upon a meadow,
Interplaying with the rain and sun,
Shaped by turning earth through light and shadow,
The growth of two becomes the growth of one.
Even as you enter now the light,
Remember how we shared the dreams of night.
Today's a Day of Love Not Just for Us
Today's a day of love not just for us,
But for all of those who brought us here.
So please excuse us if we make a fuss
Over you, the ones we hold most dear.
In you we see the love we replicate
By joining on this day our separate lives.
Our choice was neither accident nor fate,
But homage to good husbands and sweet wives.
We hope to make a family just like yours,
And be to our children parents much like you.
You have been to us wide-open doors
Onto a serene and peaceful view.
We look to you with gratitude and pride.
What joy this day to have you at our side!
Vested in Your Heart Is All My Hope
Vested in your heart is all my hope,
As I must hope that yours is all in mine.
Love both narrows and expands our scope,
Extending each to each as we combine.
No boundaries of ourselves themselves remain.
Tides of need consume our shifting shore.
Innocent, we talk of loss or gain,
Not knowing quite what marriage has in store.
Each is now both everything and none.
'Twixt the self and selflessness lies passion.
So may we be twain and also one,
Destined for a fate that love will fashion.
As we exchange our vows this day of love,
Yet may they all our years within us move.
We Met as Merely Words upon a Screen
We met as merely words upon a screen,
Disembodied souls who found a mate
Through mind alone, and unsuspected yearning.
We fell in love the best way, sight unseen,
Pure hunger that nor feast nor flesh could sate,
Two hidden flames fair fed by phrases burning.
Most find their way by sight into the heart,
Loving first what must most quickly change
And only then what will the years endure.
We did the opposite, though not by art,
Taking steps that we did not arrange
Along a path both passionate and sure.
Welcome to Our Family
Welcome to our family,
Beloved of the child we love!
Come join us in what is to be
And share with us what time will prove.
Dear lover of the child we love,
Whom we now love as if our own,
Come share with us what time will prove
And make our house and hearts your home.
Whom we now love as if our own
Because on you our own has smiled,
Come make our house and hearts your home
And be to us another child.
Because on you our own has smiled,
Come join us in what is to be
And be to us another child.
Welcome to our family!
When You Were Just a Lad of Twenty
When you were just a lad of twenty,
Wet behind the ears,
You bet me that you wouldn't marry
At least a full ten years.
Well, that was but eight years ago,
And here you are today:
The partner of a lovely bride,
A groom in full array!
A thousand dollars is my prize
Now you've been proven wrong.
The moral is: it's never wise
To think you are too strong
To be touched by the beauty of
An unrestrained affection.
You lost your bet, but won your love:
Now here's to your selection!
You Are the Mirror of My Past
You are the mirror of my past,
The future of my dreams,
The hope for what in life may last,
The jewel that time redeems.
You are yourself, of course, no less,
But also you are mine,
The light of all my treasured days,
The gift for which I pine.
Long may we this closeness share,
This place where memories play,
And if our friendship needs repair,
May love reveal the way.
And now that you're to be a wife
With loves and passions new,
May you find in your sweet life
The joy I have in you.
You Finally Found Each Other
You finally found each other after
Searching hard for love.
In this uncertain world you've come
To one you're certain of.
How can you know the someone whom
You'll cherish throughout life?
What indices identify
A husband or a wife?
Sometimes there's a gravity:
Sudden, fierce, obsessed;
As if you're falling towards some star,
By its strong pull possessed.
Or sometimes there's a childhood sense
Of unselfconscious grace
Sustained within the safety zone
Of unprovoked embrace.
Sometimes there's the terror of
The searing pain of grief,
As if the loss of love were death:
Sheer scream without relief.
Or there's a sense of loveliness
Too precious to be lost:
A gift of all that makes life good,
Beyond constraint or cost.
Whatever signs you read, they all
Point in the same direction:
The self that lies beyond the self
In love and shared affection.
True love lies far beyond the will,
Yet you must choose to love:
Each day to put aside the self
And with the angels move. |
