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.”
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