We drank down our doubts, savoured the questions and accidents,
and what’s left is an empty cup to be filled, today.
Almost the first miracle in the world, making wine
for a day like this. We know, in this world, our arms
cannot reach forever; we remember Spanish-tinted dreams
spanning whole jungles separating us, heavy nights spent
dreaming one anothers’ voices and tongues—of a day
like this. And we seal a pledge bounded by the inevitable,
but look to the boundless; we would pledge it in every tongue
in the world, if we could. But though we cannot, behold
us anyway, dear friends. Today we become our love.
Notes: Hymenaios is the name of the Greek god of marriage, as well as the traditional song of the bridesmaids, but in general it’s also a general-purpose term for a “wedding song”. (The poem I wrote for my other sister’s wedding, an epithalamion, is apparently one specific type of hymenaios which was traditionally sung accompanying the bridal couple to the bedchamber. According to what I can find online, anyway. The hymenaios is the more all-encompassing category… but I’m not wholly sure.)
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