A Tardy Epithalamium

For X and XX

All vows given and received, all papers signed,

The wedding breakfast eaten and guests roundly
   Thanked, the car with tin cans and streamers
   Is despatched with deep elemental

Leers. Later, after the disco, as tipsy

Voices disappear down darkened streets, a last
   Light is flicked on and off, a door tried
   And a key turned as everything drains

Into the vast breathing silence of the night.

And so another occasion by which we
   Measure the old, slow wandering of
   Time is placed in an album or ranged

On a mantelpiece and we can turn back to

The curious business of living in which
   Days, weeks, months are lost without a trace –
   Can it really be six years ago?
 
On chilly autumn Saturday mornings you
Drag yourself from your musty cave of breathing
   And stand before the shaving mirror
   All bleary eyes and dreary soap suds –

How did this tyranny of weekly shopping

So easily assume undisputed sway?
   After a long week of bought ledgers,
   Angry telephone calls and delays

On the trains (how often do you get home at

Past eight o’clock?) a Saturday lie-in would
   Have been a more than necessary
   Treat, but here you are listening to

The ‘Early Show’ and wondering as you shave

If that creaking plank can really be your neck.
   Through the window in the October
   Gloom you can all too visibly see

The frankly mutinous realm of your married

Estate: the lawn with its weeds, the roses which
   Were never dead-headed and, under
   Your nose, the side-wall spitting out its

Pointing like a baby’s first teeth. Come Monday

And you will stand on the station with hundreds
   Of others, all ruefully counting
   The lost years and wincing at thinning

Crowns, dubious after all about the joys

Of ‘Begonia Close’ and a one hour rail
   Link with London. And it’s then that you’ll
   Cling to this Saturday shopping as

A chore which silences awkward thoughts, which puts

The workaday stumble into perspective
   And lets you believe that should life turn
   Lucky, you with your choices would stroll

The High Street, day in day out, watching the herd

Rush to be shouted at or glumly ignored,
   Thinking, “The sun shines on the truly
   Free. If only there were no winters...”

Later, with a shopping bag in each hand you

Slowly push your way through the crossword puzzle
   Of the crowded streets, wilting bravely
   In the crush and longing to get back

To your mini dangerously parked on a

Yellow line. However, first you must look for
   A double-pronged egg-cup – symbol of
   Amity and lasting – laughingly

Desired by you both since that marriage-moment

Gauchely endured in a different world. Peering
   Down streets and in plate-glass windows you
   Live out in mufti the story of

The Quest, all pains and dilemmas resolved for

The moment by the one shining object that
   Redeems the devious thinking of
   Men: it takes but a few seconds to

Be truly happy, its occasions sudden

As sun after rain. Later, come evening, you
   Will lie down before your own fire with
   Firmly drawn curtains. What will you do?

Some wine, a record, lawfully ignoring

The frenzied lights and cries of a nervous world
   As outside in darkness the earth turns
   Over, the seas rush to their stations.

What does it mean, this puzzle of living? We

Marry, beget and clamber as high as we
   Decently can in a job, bringing
   Business home and taking family

To work. There is, I suppose, the comfort of

Custom, but come our sixtieth year, standing
   In the garden enjoying a break
   From family celebrations, I

Wonder how proudly we will raise a glass and

See off glibly the years which once we drank to?
   Once, in early dawn having woken
   And gone back to sleep I dreamt of a

Far hillside warmly emblazoned by the young

May sun. All was silent save for the call of
   Yellowhammers, hidden in hawthorn
   And blithely busy beneath a fresh

Blue sky. A yew tree stood in a dip of ground,

Large with the gorging of years, its black bulk like
   A frown in the landscape. Beneath it
   Bright in the shadow and rubbish of

Needles was a small white stone. A voice whispered

From the tree, “I mould the heavy elements.
   In inter-stellar space like Wayland
   The Smith I make and unmake. My iron

Supports your haemoglobin; you are a child

Of my fancy. One day I will destroy you.”
   The yew shivered. Lost in its branches
   All the stars stumbled, flared up and went

Out. The stone only sang, “Intellect is not

As bread and stones, it spurns this tissue of dreams.
   Let a man mould his thoughts to the Light
   For it has set the pulsars humming.”

I woke to the damp and dregs of day. Six years

Ago I thought like this and the crowsfeet have
   Inveigled my eyes. What is life but
   A thorough preparation for death?

Dear X and XX, I will not amuse you

With tales of the Saxons, how man and wife would
   Go their ways to monastery and
   Nunnery, there (still married) to clear

Their minds and sing in praise of the Absolute.

For you the more indistinct paths of this world
   Beckon, the problem of living in
   A failing time, when the beaten gold

Of old Rome shines impotently and a new

World (if such it be) mutters in storms beneath
   A distant hill. Charity, patience
   Are all we can cleave to; and making

A life – a married imperium – recalls

The plight of the Britons, shaving with pig grease
   And breaking the ground with fatal hope
   After the legions had gone and their

Cities crumbled in majestic despair. All

Will be revealed, doubtless, to some future scribe
   Who, looking back, will see the pattern
   And wonder what we were thinking of,

But now for us the task only of getting

By and collecting the minor triumphs of
   The dispossessed. Live well and use all
   You can of your hopes for the future

Thinking of friends and of loved ones always. I,

Dealer in chances and prosodic puzzles,
   Offer this epithalamium
   In praise of the conjoining of souls.

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© August 1981