Epithalamium: Seventh Hour

Midmorning tea and toast with marmalade
Will bolster bride and groom against a rampage
Of taffeta and tuxes; snakes to braid;
Slacks to press; and hangovers to manage –
White noise of detail, white heat of minutiae
(A great-great-aunt’s fuchsia
Pantsuit provokes the bride to sudden tears) –
Such lapses are the comic lacunae
Which stuff the pillow full of talk for years
And show how the sun's sacramental rise
Can cast all enterprise
In half a shadow, man’s own breaks and faults.
But swelled to hear the weather’s good report,
These hurricanes at loose ends fly apart
And calm falls like wind on water. Time halts.
The bride is rising to the occasion
Without hesitation.
Her heart’s red-letter day finds her peace in this –
That human nature’s voice can reach the key of grace.