Our wedding ceremony was graced with a beautiful poem from poet-scholar bridesmaid Amy Leigh Wicks. You can find more of her writing here. Our poem is called “Old Books and Lullabies,” and it plays heartstrings.

 

Old Books and Lullabies

By Amy Leigh Wicks

 

“White, a blank page or canvas.

The challenge: bring order to the whole

through design, composition, tension, balance,

light and harmony.”

 

Picture Times Square finally empty in the grey before dawn,

she climbs the red stairs and sits for the thousandth time

blessing her city as the sun pours down like honey on mountains

of garbage and sidewalk rock made smooth by steady streams of people.

 

Picture him wandering up a rocky shepherd’s path

from the bright Mediterranean shore through the crowded city

into the rocky hills that over look Lebanon. Day after day he looks for God

in the faces of the people that he meets. Night after night he tastes and sees

that the Lord is good.

 

Picture all of the laughter and the tears,

the dreams and disappointments

of one girl becoming a woman,

of one boy becoming a man.

Picture it and you will be at the beginning:

 

It starts in Chicago, soft as a lullaby in warm September—

two strangers sharing a bench on the edge

of a lake that goes on forever.

 

The hot winds of summer cool,

Autumn flames,

And by the time the first snow has kissed

the ground, she is in his arms.

 

Love dances in her kitchen after pizza

croons his favourite songs

elbows deep in a sink full of sudsy dishes.

 

He watches strands of dark hair fall

in front of her green eyes

as she runs her finger along the spines

of his favourite books and slides one out:

 

“Life without love is like a tree

Without blossoms,” she reads.

 

Love has captured his heart

with one glance of her eyes. She watches

West Wing on the couch beside him, and when

He cracks a joke, her laughter feels like home.

 

He brings her rosewater pistachio malban from Beirut,

She brings him to Lou Mitchell’s on Jackson,

And “I will see you soon,” becomes an empty cup

They want to fill with forever.

 

Can you see it? All of her

songs and prayers, every book

He filled with stories and ideas.

Two different journeys

rich with colour and light, shadows and longings

have brought them to this place.

 

Can you see it? It is in the shine

of his eyes, the shape of her dress—

“White: a blank page or canvas.

His favourite—so many possibilities.”

Posted by Griffin Paul Jackson

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