Anniversary
June 07, 2008
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TEN YEARS IN
For E.
The wind was cold and salty on the day
that you and I became a new kind of "we."
You reached into your pocket for the ring
and when you first slid it onto my hand
a wild amazement cracked my heart open
and everything in my world felt new.
I would have said, then, that I knew
what it meant to wake beside you every day,
to treat each as a present to open
together. I didn't understand how we
would grow together, traveling hand
in hand on cobblestones and ring
roads, how our travels would ring
too internal continents, mapping new
territory of the heart. Since I took your hand
in the gentle rain ten years ago today
I've felt you with me, no matter where we
are. The future is wide open
like our chuppah, like our household, open
to our family of friends, the ring
of everyone who gathers when we
celebrate. Every morning is new.
That I get to walk beside you night and day
still awes me. This sign upon my hand
fills me with joy. We've each had a hand
in this handiwork, building this open
trellis within which our life blooms day
by day. It's flexible like the ring
of our arms around each other, always new.
This is the life that we
have made, and I love the way we
keep each others’ dreams close to hand.
Like watching Local Hero, something new
in every viewing; like a waltz in open
3/4 time; your voice, our vows, ring
and reverberate in me to this day.
And our faces, our hearts: we are open.
The gears of marriage turn by hand. Ring
the bells! Leap with me into a new day.
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