Wedding Anniversary Poem

 

 

 

Today is our Wedding Anniversary, our 38th. I wrote this poem for Margaret two years ago on the 36th anniversary.

On a May Morning

 

Light is all around us

The sky is light

The air is light

Even the grass is light.

We could float upwards

Like Richard Bransen in his rocket-plane

Towards the mountain’s peak.

 

The sky is cloudless;

The Autumn trees sparkle in the light

In Tom King’s garden

While Newton and Truby

Scamper across the lawn.

 

If it were not for your friends

And my family

We would probably have soared away

Never to return.

We did escape for a time

Thanks to a car

Planted in Hawera.

 

I still remember the light,

The weightlessness,

And the sense of needing to

Hold on to the earth

On that unique May morning

Thirty-six years ago.

 

Six packets of six years it has been,

The perfect number.

 

 

And if we play the Cookies’ game,*

Which packet do you prefer,

I will still say: the last one,

While I can walk across the street

Holding my grandson’s hand

On the way to McDonalds.

 

Or watch my sons

Shouldering their loads

Of leading a family.

 

Or see my granddaughter caring for

Her man…..

 

Mind you it was all fun:

Working together,

Finding our way,

Building the future,

And they will be again

Whenever we come back

Down to earth

On a May morning.

 

-10 May 2013

 

*Our friends, Paul and Nanette Cooke play a game with their family. Each person chooses a year of their life they would like to revisit, and tells the rest of the family why.