Wedding Poem
—after Carl Adamshick, “Epithalamium”
Here we go trembling
one following the other
light not low and long enough
to trip us up
on the way to our marriage bed
as it was in the sunset meadow
until the following sunrise
everything wonderful
our double existence
mind boggling as double vision
again and again
yours and mine now new
spousal arousal
folded into a paper airplane
the point of which
mirrors stars in your eyes
your eyes mirroring mine
_____________
Dale Champlin
Review by Jared Pearce
I’m often reminded that there should be no sentimentality in our poem, no emotions almost. And when I hear that, I’m reminded of what one of my teachers said to a student who made such a comment, But aren’t we, people, sentimental? Then why not examine it through poetry? I liked the bravery there and I like how this poem reminds us of how wonderful it is be married, to be connected to that one person. Whatever happens later, happens later. In the moment, we feel like a whole galaxy.
Review by Massimo Fantuzzi
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. / I love thee to the depth and breadth and height / My soul can reach (from Elisabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnet 43)
The union of two bodies and two ideas is not a merging into one but an explosion, an expansion. A surge of exponential growth, a double vision, where love becomes a hall of mirrors casting infinite stellar reflections. In this evaporation of the individuals’ confinement into perpetual refraction, in this ceaseless back-and-forth we call love, there is no fusion, no restriction, only radiant, dreamy interaction. Every folding and bending between the two helps shape the blueprint of the flying machine that allows them to surf this chain reaction, this wave of light. A light that is not there to trip us up, but to trip us out.