flexagon | V's wedding

Oh my... SO TIRED, I've been so tired all week. Getting 8 hours of sleep seems not to be enough at all. Is it the change in the weather? The in-law visit? The aftereffects of bopping to CA and back?

Well, it was good to be in V's wedding, which is what the CA trip was about. I edited a poem for her

Here's how the poem started out when V found it on the web and decided it had "her theme":

The Travelers

A visitor came a while ago who had traveled
a long and winding route for as many years as I.
Like two branches off a wide river that join again at the sea,
our journeys through different lands carried the same waters
as our mother stream.

Just as reunited siblings discover each other’s similarities,
we knew about one another the moment we met.
Our lives, our loves, our joys --
different yet of the same fiber, texture, and strength.

We knew then that our attachment was sure and firm.
We tentatively touched, questioned, tested...
as all friends do, seeking to assure common ground
before ascending to the next level of friendship.

So instant was our liking that in the time
it can take acquaintances to become friends,
we became lovers bound in friendship.

A friendship of caring, individual needs
shaded and enhanced by an overriding
sense of fulfillment in instantly knowing
the right course to take in our continuing
journey together.

Now we move on as streams conjoined
in a deep valley through the mountains,
our waters swift, strong, and clear.
Our new destination is farther away yet more real,
calling us to a sea of living dreams.

Gacccccccck. Okay. The time travel (instant liking?), the sibling references, the atrocious sentence fragment before the last verse, the utter lack of rhythm... I did not want to read that thing in front of an audience. So I begged to do some editing. After five rounds of back-and-forth so that each tiny change could be tweaked by V, here's where we got. I think it's better. Equal stanza lengths, whooo!

A visitor came a while ago who had traveled
a long and winding road for as many years as I.
Like branches of a long river that join near the sea,
our journeys through different lands carried
the same waters as our mother stream.

Like old neighbors meeting in a far away land,
we knew about one another the moment we met.
Our first touch was calm yet surprising.
In his hands, I saw the fiber of my own life
woven into a new pattern I wanted to learn.

We tentatively touched, questioned, tested,
until we knew our attachment was sure and firm.
And so it suddenly was that in the time
acquaintances can take to become friends,
we became lovers bound in friendship.

A friendship shaded by understanding,
a friendship of individual needs
that somehow the other could always meet--
Tasting for the first time the sweetness
of choosing a course together.

Now we move on as streams conjoined
in a deep valley through the mountains,
our waters swift, strong, and clear.
Our new destination is farther away yet more real,
calling us to a sea of waking dreams.

and read it during the ceremony. People say I did well, I don't know. I did keep it really slow to deal with the acoustics. Anyway, to my surprise the officiant made certain lines into a big deal during the next little bit of talking that he did, and talked about their union in terms of the poem! Then I felt all special. V looked lovely and frazzled and happy, of course. I've decided I like it when friends get married. :) I got to see W, an old friend of V's and mine from MIT, and also an old friend of HLM's who we stayed with. Very nice. And then we flew home.

Edit: I forgot to mention all the God stuff in the ceremony... lots and lots of God stuff. That surprised me, since V is not especially religious. What comes over people to do that on dressy occasions when the parents are there!? Ack, I'm so glad we didn't succumb to whatever temptation there must be.

I'm avoiding thinking about tae kwon do. My month off was over a couple of days ago, but there's a whole other post in what I could say about that. Ech. I almost wish I had an injury or something so I had an excuse to stay out.