Midnight Wedding

You'd have thought it was an elopement,
handfuls of rain rattling on the windows
like gravel. The wind said, "Climb down
my ladder and we'll run away together
to the mountains, we'll fall down
in blankets of white around the cliffs,
marry into ancient glacier families."

At three AM snow was falling
silent on wet streets, a secret wedding gown
decorated with crocuses, violets
and white lace. The streetlights wore haloes
to solemnize the occasion.

By morning all this pageantry was gone.
Romance, marriage, birth: new flowers
were pushing up through melt-wet earth
into the motherly kiss of rain. I wondered
if I'd dreamed it all-- wind, snow,
night wedding. But the quinces nodded:
"You remember."

Collection available! Knocking from Inside