Vows (for a gay wedding)

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What was unforeseen is now a bird orbiting this field.

What wasn’t a possibility is present in our arms.

It shall be and it begins with you.

Our often-misunderstood kind of love deems dangerous.

How it frightens and confounds and enrages.

How strange, unfamiliar.

Our love carries all those and the contrary.

It is most incandescent.

So, I vow to be brave.

Clear a path through jungles of shame and doubt and fear.

I’m done with silence. I proclaim.

It shall be and it sings from within.

Truly we are enraptured

With Whitmanesque urge and urgency.

I vow to love in all seasons.

When you’re summer, I’m watermelon balled up in a sky blue bowl.

When I’m autumn, you’re foliage ablaze in New England.

When in winter, I am the tender scarf of warm mercies.

When in spring, you are the bourgeoning buds.

I vow to love you in all places.

High plains, prairies, hills and lowlands.

In our dream-laden bed,

Cradled in the nest

Of your neck.

Deep in the plum.

It shall be and it flows with you.

We’ll leap over the waters and barbaric rooftops.

You embrace my resilient metropolis.

I adore your nourishing wilderness.

I vow to love you in primal ways.

I vow to love you in infinite forms.

In our separateness and composites.

To dust and stars and the ever after.

Intrepid travelers, lovers, and family

We have arrived.

Look. The bird has come home to roost.