(I am writing this sitting in one of the great British wayside institutions- a Little Chef- somewhere near Skipton.)
We have been away on holiday for a week- more on this later- but today we attend our friends Stacey and Bob’s wedding at Beeston Manor, near Preston. Emily and I will be playing some fiddle/guitar music, and they kindly asked me to write a poem for the ceremony.
It is a humanist ceremony, and so I spent some time trying to come up with some way of saying something new about love. Not an easy thing to do without stumbling into a morass of sticky clichés. Also, my main poetic voice tends towards melancholic introspection, not quite the right tone for a wedding!
So, with every best wish to the happy couple- here is my poem of love;
The shared unknown
What more can be said of love that has not been said before?
I could sing to you of roses
I could scratch our names on trunks of trees
Or shower you with diamonds
We could walk through moonlight holding hands
Throw coins in Italian fountains
Or I could tell you of how, as a child
Someone sprinkled perfume on my pillow
And it smelled of you
Of how the sound of your voice is a flute
Blown by a desert wind
From some distant spice-filled oasis
But love is not captured in words
It also does the dishes
It takes the cold side of the bed
And knows all our guilty secrets
Love grows fat and grey and old
It gets sick and needs protection
So walk with me into this shared unknown
Love is a far horizon
Wherever you go is fine with me
These miles we’ll make together
For love is home when you are there
And will be so for ever
Very lovely, Big Boy. You had me at, “It also does the dishes”. You incurable romantic!