Personalized Wedding Poem: For and From My Dad

 My dad asked me to write a Personalized Wedding Poem and he read it as a toast at our wedding.

At first, I had no idea how to proceed. How could I write a poem for my own wedding to be read by someone else? I was baffled. 

After he filled out the Questionnaire (which I created especially for this unique situation), I thought long and hard about what I know about his voice and the advice that he has given to me over the years. This is what I came up with and what he read at our wedding.

Thank you, Dad, for being you.

PS: I used to call my dad “Daie.”

 

 

 

From the Father of the Bride, Your Daie

 

Thank you for being you,

as I’ve told you so many times.

 

When I put my hand on your mother’s stomach

and felt you shift under her skin,

I lowered my eyes,

wondrous at life.

 

You’ve continued to grow

east, west, north, south.

I watch you tug on your dreams,

fall deeper in love,

turn a corner in this developing union.

 

You and Hans

care for each other in ways I can see

and ways I know.

 

Let the wind always be in your sails

as you move together through life.

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Our Own Personalized Wedding Poem

As you might have guessed, I wrote our own personalized wedding poem. I showed it to my groom before the wedding and we integrated it into the readings during the ceremony. The Wonderful Woman Shasta Grant Huntington did a beautiful job reading it.

Mapping Love

All of my poems are secret love poems to you,

the one I wake up next to,

eat breakfast next to,

live next to.

 

I don’t remember life before you.

What I remember is this:

holding your hand                   holding you                holding me.

 

I wish for this new beginning,

to be yet another beginning.

We began in words, then Union Square.

I want to see the world and create

next to you.

 

This map, the one with mountains,

oceans, city streets, our bodies, words and ideas,

is the one we will explore.

I promise you this.

 

I promise that when our adventures tangle our minds,

we will hold hands, undo the knots, tie neater ones.

There will always be knots in this imperfect world.

Let us renew our wedding vows through words, movements.

 

The word love is a cliché, a beating heart,

but that is the word we have. Love.

The image, though, is this: the shooting stars under the blanket of clouds in Maryland.

It is not drawn by a human hand on the map.

No one can see it.

But, we cannot breathe without it.

 

I promise you everything: earth’s drawn skin to what is invisible to the eye.

I am next to you; that is to say, next to everything.

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