Stanzas

My sister-in-law is getting married a few days from now, and my wife's cousins are preparing a video presentation to be shown during the reception. Each family is required to come up with a short video greeting for the newlyweds. I've just come back from a two-day mountain climb, and coming up with a video greeting is farthest from my mind. My battered body needs to rest. Family is family, though.

However, I've always looked at video greetings as a tired cliche, and I believe that most of them are forgotten after only a short while. Add to that is the fact that with a video greeting, it's difficult to see through a person's sincerity (or the lack of it). I prefer words. I prefer to write something for the newlyweds. I look at and treat words as remnants of a person's heart and soul. Words may lie, but to the one who is skillful in analyzing words, the lie becomes apparent and the real intent is revealed.

Obviously, for a wedding I have to write something about Love, and some of its idiosyncrasies. It's always been one of my favorite topics. Love and pain are two of my more or less constant inspirations. Could be my undoing, but what can I do? Here are the stanzas I came up with:

1

Love happens,
is unplanned.
Like the breaths I take, and,
in your absence,
my despondence.
Like my heartbeats,
their frenzy,
in your nearness.

2

Love consumes me.
Into oblivion,
I relegate the past;
Now and Possibilities
make up my dreams.

3

Love is my calling.
You are, of my passion,
the unwitting object;
you are, of my soul,
the dream.