Epithalamia

The London post . . .

The Hackney Weddings
by Kenneth Durham Smith

The bright light splashes
against the white facade
and showers down on the wedding parties 
arrayed in phalanxes along the 
ritual pitted steps – 
the wedding couple flanked by parents,
grooms and maids, next extended family,
then friends and jilted and forgotten loves,
and around the edges the scurry 
of children, girls in floral frocks, 
boys tugging at collars 
overtightened by zealous parents

Each party in turn ascends, 
disappears, then inside, climbs
to the chamber of sanctification
Words are spoken, vows, promises,
official documents, crisp like fresh lettuce, signed
and they descend into the open
Photos taken on the steps, then the now
traditional antique red wedding bus
Then the next party and the next

Receptions, speeches, dinner, dances
In the morning they wake, dazed perhaps,
haunted perhaps by a thought
that hovers just out of sight –
they promised love, but also promised
forever, and no one told them

But shower, phone calls to parents,
and then to breakfast and a new day

The Seattle riposte . . .

V.  A Wedding from A Decade of Sonnets (1993)
by David Keith Johnson

Each morning when I take the city bus
I am reminded of a ride we took
up Broadway to the hall in Riverdale,

the friends and family that rode with us
jammed in the aisle, which swayed and bumped and shook,
and I recall each feature of the tale.

How we were married by that noble man,
whose simple words suggested our life’s plan:
to honor, trust, be truthful, and forgive;

Then through showering tears, showering rice,
we made our way back to that grand device  
that bussed us back to where we two would live.

We’d say, if someone asked the two of us,
The surest way to romance is a bus.