According to God's Holy Ordinance


I watch this couple stammer their vows,
Sweating in my robes,
And (as always) search out your comfortable gaze.
You are waiting, expecting the glance,
Smiling in unspoken agreement.
They have no idea what they're getting into.

We have seen the best in each other,
Known one another at our worst.
You have been mine for poorer,
And while we're still waiting for the other part of that one,
I count myself rich.
The doctors only give us a few more years,
But we covered that too,
Stammering like these young lovers
Without a clue.

Love is a wound and a poultice,
A drawing back and pressing in,
A dream stubbornly enduring the harsh morning sun.
Love is cherishing and forgetting
And finding in another's grace something to cherish even more.
Do they realize, as they mouth these old words,
That they are opening their ribcages
While naming the very things
That will hollow out their chest?
Death will part them,
And while it comes too soon for us,
It always comes too soon.

They are waiting for the next line.
I could stare at your face forever.
You tilt your chin to say,
“Get on with it.”
None of us realizes what we promise.
Knowing, I would promise it all again.

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