At The Country Wedding
They don’t tinkle
Champagne glasses
With their spoons here
And only the old folks
Are sitting down.
A country western group
Has lugged its equipment upstairs,
And later today and into the evening
This young married couple
Will learn the sweet
And rotten joys
From the masters of it —
Dancing fathers and mothers,
Lonesome aunts and yodeling uncles.
But for the moment
Paper plates are heaped with
Homemade ham, biscuits and beans
And all a few people want
Is a kiss,
So tapping on the side
Of a beer bottle with a knife
Quiets the whole grange hall down
Pacific
Lovelier —
When the
Bandana from
My pocket is
Worn around
Her neck
Sand Dollar
We’ve waited all year
And traveled all morning
Just arrive like this —
In the very same place
We were a year ago today.
And you are just as beautiful,
Your long skirt blowing in sand,
As we walk for miles along
The edge of the leaving tide
Picking up seashells and stone
That we’ll select more carefully
The longer we are here —
Which is no place with a name,
Except someplace in our heart.
Where that day, unlike any other,
You found excitedly a sand dollar
Washed in during the night,
Left in a tidal pool, and
Kneeling while taking it up,
Placed it home in my hand.
Picture
I remember you
The only person
For miles standing
In the Athabasca River
Because you wanted to
Warm late October day
South of Jasper
Sandals in your hand
White-checkered dress
Just off the roadside
Car waiting and you
Freezing for a moment
In the water melted
Out of the surrounding
Mountains of snow
————————————
BOB ARNOLD
I'm In Love With You
Who Is In Love With Me
Longhouse 2012
