WEDDING TALK

Change occurs at the edge of things,

the groom said, looking at the photograph

he’d taken of blueberry bushes burning

crimson in autumn on Dolly Sod.

I think of the sun’s bow before an earth

altar at dawn and dusk, the space between

known and knowing, empty with possibility.

In the doorway, a carved flute plays the wind

and, down the hill, merged rivers meet land with

pebbled touch and a wave at parting. In this ceremony

between before and after, I think of a message,

torn and ink-run, when summer turned

to snow overnight. Here are the edges

of two bodies rubbing dried and polished

stones together, flint and twig, burn and spark.

Vicki Mandell-King