Alice and I recently unearthed some photographs that were taken the day we began telling folks that we intended to marry. That was over 40 years ago. The pictures led to the following poem which will be included in my forthcoming collection, Why Matter Might Matter.
The Miracle of Young Love
I look at the photos of us snapped
by a friend in the parking lot
of his apartment taken the morning
we told the world that we decided to marry
within a month of our meeting. How young
we look now some forty years on,
although then in our mid-twenties
we felt so old, maybe even wise.
How excited and bedazzled by it all,
by each other we appear.
My smile so honest, so wide,
a constant from shot to shot.
I look so content, I hardly
recognize myself beaming
in my favorite collarless dress shirt,
and you so beautiful in jeans
and a lavender button-down
so resolute and assured in our decision
most of the world will find rash.
In one shot we are looking deep
into each other’s eyes, foreheads
together, our faces the epitome of joy,
and all that is meaningful in this world,
the miracle of a trillion circumstances
and accidents from the Big Bang forward
that brought us together, sensed, and celebrated.
Our love so nearly captured on film.