Heather's Moment

Our friend Heather, the writer... the poet... the artist... the dreamer... the believer.. the deep thinker... (the over-thinker)...the philosopher...the feeler... the "She's our friend,"(we brag) ....wrote this beautiful poem for us and shared it during our wedding ceremony. We are honored, inspired, envious...and, yet, Heather simply calls it a "thingy."

So here's Heather's thingy:

These Days (with inspiration from Mathew Rohrer)

This morning I woke in the same city they introduced me to.
This morning I dressed in front of a window whose view is always reflected in me.
This morning we all woke and whispered, today we will bless this.

And this day we are here under the trees and shiny things.
This day we were let in on a secret

On this day, the wedding is theirs and we are witnesses.
As we have witnessed all along.

We witness
The secret they tried to keep
(from prying teenage ears and prying grown up eyes)
We witness the world they made their own
(through bicycle tours and downward dogs)
We witness the languages they learned to speak
(from smoothworn cobblestones to communist bloc)
We witness the way they let us in
(when eyes and ears stopped prying there they were, as if they’d always been, just the way you see them now, as if they’d always been)

What we witness is what we strive for.
In the marriages we have and in the marriages we imagine.
In the friendships we celebrate and in the friendships we long for.
In the journeys we plan and the journeys we dream about.
This day, we witness all of this.

Here within the circle of trees.
There just beyond the trees.
We bless this.
We wish for a little bit of this.
We hope for just a little but of this

And here's Heather's Inspiration:

Epithalamium by Matthew Rohrer

In the middle garden is the secret wedding,
that hides always under the other one
and under the shiny things of the other one. Under a tree
one hand reaches through the grainy dusk toward another.
Two right hands. The ring is a weed that will surely die.


There is no one else for miles,
and even those people far away are deaf and blind.
There is no one to bless this.
There are the dark trees, and just beyond the trees.

from wikipedia
epithalamium (from Greek; epi- upon, and thalamium nuptial chamber, sometimes also spelled "epithalamion") specifically refers to a form of poem that is written for the bride. Or, specifically, written for the bride on the way to her marital chamber. The word derives from the Greek epithalamios which means "of a wedding", epi (of) + thalamos (bridal chamber.) This form continued in popularity through the history of the classical world; the Roman poet Catullus wrote a famous epithalamium, which was translated from or at least inspired by a now-lost work of Sappho.

And here's Heather: