Wedding Poem: All About Me
I've been talking about faith a lot this week, which is why I'm sharing this poem I wrote in my book "Dearest Enemy."
Wedding Poem: All About Me
First, what I know is the
moon and all its constancy: its
continuance of significance to me since an
ecstasy in a lonely, grassy bowl to the
end of this poem where we’ll
meet again after all the doubt.
Because I do doubt the
story of this day: how He and She,
one individual and another apart, will
encircle their flesh through some
frightful gold to become one.
But I’m not afraid to
encounter souls on plains where no
side is more weighted or hilly by what
we might will of another creature.
Because what is willed is
what we explain him or her to be. How we
assert: “This is their essence!”
And such assertions I only
trust when artists review one another. Like in
Kuala Lumpur when I wrote the
caricaturist and he drew me. And again, he
re-enters as my testament to the
exponential potential I’ve found inside that
tenuous string that winds us into art.
But when I unwind “what is a
bride and groom,” it’s like an
arena with no exits. My ideas
startle. They sway frantically for an
edge—to tumble into flight.
They fly all over. They’ve been all
over. They’ve traveled to many surfaces even an
artist in Malaysia, and inside that
keepsake bubble, I still harvest a
confidence from which to leap.
But how can I be confident in the
trajectory of a marriage? Won’t it just end in a
collection of minutes? A summation of
events? With what methods might we
confide the shape of that chain? Cause the
spine to shift? To split the
line ajar and then rejoin hands—?
But then, I circle back to blue
nights and that silver tongue—how it always
tugged me up. Under every sky, the
moon shocked substances out of me!
Until one moonless night
drifted a shocking thought: Maybe it’s
enough, and so from our long
entanglement I chose to pull back. I
moved under and away to
inhale new things, and it pursued
tragic or bearded comedic roles
no matter their heedless ends.
Until I craved an ending.
I was new again. Everything was
exotic; again. For this poem, I desired
anchors, and yet I couldn’t translate
yellow albums of young lovers nor could
dreamy films about passionate kisses
unthicken my mind. But still I dug: What is
hidden in ceremony? What could possibly
entice us to walk into muffled depth?
And then on a walk, I
pivoted back into the moon. Behind a
palm frond, it laughed at me while I
echoed back its light. Finally, I held
simplicity: how it was all about
Faith. How it was all about
what I do and don’t understand about
lips, especially those that always seem to
gather me back.
And I can gather how this
Faith sits cheerfully atop a porous
cloud. And maybe it’ll tip through but
not yet! And that is my ardent
hope for you, dear Bride and Groom:
I hope you have what is
exactly the moon in a starless sky
laughing at all my doubts—
laughing at them but also
holding them close and so
tenderly.
—by Sarah Dzida (2019, Dearest Enemy)
Author’s Note: In 2005, my friend asked me to write a poem for her wedding, and as I told her: I refuse to write anything about brides, veils, rings, wedding and all that stuff you generally get. She agreed, and in the end, I learned I first had to convince myself that marriage and love was a good thing before I could write her wedding poem. If you want to read the whole fun journey, then check out my book here.