WEDDING DOORS

by Dee Wade

Church wedding doors:
splashed with shades of hope
—hope thin and loud, wild and domestic—
for fullness of flower
brushed “by summer’s ripening breath,”
and, with unlucky grace, to reseed the earth,
love again to bud.

Inside the church wedding doors
two have no idea what, one on one, they promise,
holding, having, in plenty and in want
how could they
know how sick you can get, how fat with health,
they see only a rounded eye, a slender finger banded
as long as we both (we both?) shall live.

Facing the church wedding doors,
far down the aisle, his back to wax weeping candles
the pastor intones love as commitment
and the people nod approval even as they yawn
but are awakened by love as delight
and love as wonder, because she, daughter of
Jerusalem,
is a wonder and so, in some slack-jawed way, is he.

Sealing the church wedding doors
are the shadow of desperate longing
and the brightness of joy touched;
they both warn and inspire
until bride and groom grow old in their love
old enough to birth and appreciate miracles,
roughing out beauty excessive of good looks.

Now, unsealed, these church wedding doors open
before the passage of our pronounced couple,
This being the time of flowers appearing,
the time of singing,
of turtledoves and vineyards in blossom.
Arise my love, my fair one,
and come away.