Menu
  • HOME
  • ABOUT
    • About Annie
    • How to Read FAQ
    • Interviews
    • Press Kit
      • Testimonials
      • Press Kit
  • BOOKS
    • Getting-Started Guide for Annie’s Books
    • The Poetry Witch Little Book of Spells
    • Spells: New and Selected Poems
    • Among the Goddesses
    • Calendars
    • Eve
    • The Encyclopedia of Scotland
    • A Poet’s Craft
    • A Poet’s Ear
    • The Body of Poetry
    • The Ghost of Meter
    • Best Books for Poets
    • Edited Anthologies
  • POETRY
    • Note on Reading These Poems Aloud
    • Spiral of Annie’s Poems
      • Brave Women’s Amulet
      • Moon for Our Daughters
      • Walk With Me
      • On Poetry and Architecture
      • “The Naming”: Memorial Poem for 9-11
      • Keys
      • A Wedding on Earth
      • Spells for the Wheel of the Year
      • Summer Solstice Chant
    • Listen to Poems
    • Essays on Poetry
      • What is Poetry?
      • How to Create a Poetic Tradition
      • More Essays on Poetry
    • Stuff for Poets
      • A Blessing on the Poets
      • Best Books for Poets
      • 60 Places to Publish Formal Poetry
      • How to Edit an Anthology
    • Collaborations
    • Translation
    • Commissions
    • Poems by my Mother Maggie Finch
  • CHOICE
    • Choice Words: Writers on Abortion
    • Among the Goddesses Epic Libretto
    • Visit Choice Words Action
    • Download Choice Words Toolkit
  • WITCHERY
    • “Are You a Good Witch …or a Bad Witch?”
    • Rituals
    • Chants
    • Poetry Witch Ritual Theater
    • The Magic of Rhythmically Writing
    • Healing Rituals
    • Witchy Workshops
    • Women, Poetry, and Spirituality
  • EVENTS
    • Upcoming Appearances
    • Previous Events
    • Poetry Performance
    • Theater Performances
  • TEACHING
    • Upcoming Classes
    • Best Books for Poets
    • Private Consultations
  • COMMUNITY
    • Poetry Witch Community
    • Support Annie’s Work on Patreon
  • CONNECT
    • Bookings
    • Contact Annie
    • Subscribe to Newsletter
    • Online Visit
    • Shopping Cart
  • BLOG

Annie Finch

  • NEWS
  • CALENDAR OF CLASSES
  • SEARCH SITE
  • SUBSCRIBE TO NEWSLETTER
  • BOOKSHOP

A Wedding on Earth

From A WEDDING ON EARTH

 

                      "That all the woods may answer, and your eccho ring."
                                                                               --Edmund Spenser

 

 

Marriage is a field where the planet’s skin
stretches and wakes open in fertile seeds,
moving patterns through couples.  They begin
as shadowed furrows, whose every sowing leads
time-fed opposites, soaked in day and night,
to reach each others' height.
Goddesses, gods of weddings, help this pair
pair with abundance, to curl wide and alive
with each leaf they send through the long beauty.
Grow them with the roots and the care to thrive.
Harvest them, where they strive.

 

Let your bodies make a body of bodies—cool
With the pores of a question, rich and warm
With answers quickening to beat and roll and spool
Through the lost space anchored only by love's vast charm,
till pools of kiss and hope and remembering meet,
crossed in a sculpting heat.
Enter, oh, enter the language of your skins,
where motion mentions silence, and words spill light
over the actual air;  let your touch begin
spinning separate souls in one open flight
towards one believed delight.

 

Marriage is the mirror and crucible
Where a true plain face turns to see its own
Fullness empty, its emptiness made full
In the shadows that blended love and bone,
Half-invisible, burned clear by the light,
Cast under mutual sight.
Goddesses, gods of weddings, press your hearts
Wide to reflect the earth, till they touch and share
Knowledge, patience, consciousness—human arts—
In wild bodies, and intersperse, and dare
Bend in the planet’s care.

 

Now, goddesses, gods, make marriage.  Take your hands
in the sight of these people and the earth,
and one bird finds rest in a valleyed cove,
and more birds take flight in new kinds of birth.
Touch your hands.  Touch words.  Oh, now turn and bless
each with that happiness—
your family, earth, friends, guests and the binding day.
Open us with a heart to hear every test,
brave to reach everything we will need to say,
strong to hold our silences, find our rest—
wise, to believe love best.

 

"A Wedding on Earth," full version published in Calendars (Tupelo Press, 2007) and Spells (Wesleyan University Press, 2013)

Share this content instantly via the share buttons. Thanks for spreading the word!
  • HOME
  • ABOUT
  • BOOKS
  • POETRY
  • CHOICE
  • WITCHERY
  • EVENTS
  • TEACHING
  • COMMUNITY
  • CONNECT
  • BLOG

Copyright © 2021 · SITE DESIGN BY LSC STUDIO

Copyright © 2021 · Style Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

Close