Winter Wedding

We’ll marry when we’re old.   Or not.

You wanted me for life when you were twenty, and I was seventeen.

But there were things I didn’t know I needed from the world.

The world had never gone beyond the shoreline,

but it offered other boys … a baby girl.

And the years went by like a flash flood in a dry canyon.

We’ll marry when we’re old.  Or not.

We’ll move to Eugene and live in a cabin in a hazelnut grove.

You’ll stitch cotton prairie dresses for me and bring ginger tea

out to the porch. We'll smile our eyes at each other,

still finding it hard to believe we’d made our way back.

We’ll marry when we’re old.   Or not.

I’ll work the gnarls out of your shoulders and we’ll laugh about

the basement and the four-way stop at Stars Corners

where you taught me to kiss.

A cool breeze will lift my skirt and tufts of your grey hair that

you’ll keep long around your ears.

We’ll have a dog and a cat, when we marry when we’re old.   Or not. 

But I’ve heard you love your dogs.  And me, I love my cats.

We’ll watch them play from the porch in the hazelnut grove.

I’ll remind you how we fit together so well. You'll tell me you

never forgot.  Your mother had my birthstone added to her ring.

Did she keep it there?  I’ll ask.

We probably won’t marry when we’re old

in the way that people do.

You’ll write a song and sing it in your sweet old voice. You’ll play your guitar

and I’ll make you a bolo tie of aspen wood.

We’ll promise ourselves to each  other forever, which won’t be very long. 

And if you die first I’ll wrap you in lavender-scented linen

and find a patch in the hazelnut grove.  The people from town

will help.  I’ll wrap myself in quilts and sleep there with you until I’m

sure you’ve found your way.

 And you would do the same for me. Because you’ve loved

me since I walked away .