EPITHALAMIUM
--for Kelli and Tyler
The wedding on the Mayan beach
brings together marriage and marriages.
News says it's dying out,
but you can't tell it by us
dressed in color
standing shoeless in sand.
Or those trying to get in.
This one marriage, minutes old.
Ours, 15,329 days.
The priest's question from 40 years ago:
When does marriage begin?
The Stage Manager asking,
Do I believe in it?
The marriage that isn't here--
more present than the ones that are.
That's not true either,
but that one standing before us
in its great absence, that shortest of marriages,
the one with the miracle birth,
that one, that's true, that's here.
Jim Bodeen
20 November 2010
THE MAN WHO TEACHES LAUGHTER
Laugh even when you don't feel it
is what he says. It sounded so stupid.
I went into the bathroom and cried.
Couldn't do it. No laughter from me.
When I told my wife
I laughed until tears came.
I felt so dumb. It felt so good.
Jim Bodeen
9 November 2010
Posts
great to have you back, your work here. kjm
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