i think it was around this unscripted moment, watching my old friend adore his almost wife, that i started welling up. fast forward a bit to the ceremony, in a cozy room in an elderly inn, when his partner, (a beautiful, published poet) bravely read aloud these words she had written for him a half a year before, and you can imagine how the welling turned to full on blubbering. it was an extraordinary evening.

WHEN YOU HEAR THIS
For Eric, on our wedding day

When you hear this poem, it will be December
on the near longest night of the year.
Though now I look out at the green leaves and green sounds
of locusts swell across the wide June day,
when you hear this, firest will be lit in the fireplaces
and outside: the cold, pressing in.
Right now it's June and we're apart
I'm missing you in a different state. But
the goldfinch you can't see on the fence outside my window
will, when you hear this, fly into the room, out of the past ---
you'll see it in the fluttering candles.

When you hear this, the hairs on our heads will be different lengths,
the moons of our fingernails in different phases,
the lives of those we know and those we don't
will have changed a little --- or a lot--- and the thoughts
crossing our minds will make new tracks in that new day
not yet underfoot.

But when you hear this poem, my love,
today will be today
and the different fires of June and Decemeber
will burn together in the room
and our separate families, separate friends,
will sit behind us, together, in rows
and you will know when you hear this
that all my old selves and all the months and years
have banded together for love of you---
that loving you has become a thread
that binds my days anew.

If you can hear now
this union in my voice, it must mean we're here
in the soft light of a warm room
carved out of early winter darkness ---
it must mean I'm looking at you
and the day's arrived
when we choose to pull the future near
and rename it "Today" in each other's eyes
and love it together with our fullest hearts
for as long, oh, as long
as we may.

- Jessica Garratt