After more than a decade together, my dad and Miss J. finally decided to get married. They further decided to get married on February 29th, in Detroit, at a beautiful Victorian inn, with a non-traditional ceremony. That’s just how they roll.
In January, my dad asked me if I would write a poem to read during the non-traditional ceremony. I agreed but had absolutely no idea what to write. When my sister got married in 2001, I read a poem I had written as my toast. My dad mentioned that poem when he made his request, and I didn’t have the heart to tell him I had written that poem in my brother’s car as we drove from the church to the reception. Anyway, I didn’t start really worrying about the poem until about February 20th or so. That’s when I went into full panic mode.
Lately, I’ve been working almost exclusively in serial form. I have a (looong) series of poems set in and around a Depression-era carnival. (I began that series in grad school, so it actually predates (prefigures?) Carnivàle.) I have a series of poems about phobias. A series about the Salem witch trials. I just started making notes for a poem about women accused of being Nazi collaborators. And I want to write something about women and human trafficking.
So.
Most of this subject matter seemed inappropriate for a wedding poem. I am not, as I wailed to my sister, a happy happy feel good poet. I had nothing — no idea for a title, no image, no clever line, no subject. So I did what I do best: research. I research poems the way first year law associates research briefs. I Googled “marriage” and “wedding” and “bride” like it was my job. I came up with the following email addressed to my brother and sister (dated 2/22/08):
Do you think Dad and J would be offended by a poem entitled “Wikiwedding” in which I crib every line from information about marriage found on Wikipedia? Seriously. It has come to that, my friends.
My sister’s reply:
Could be sounds hilarious to me.
My brother’s reply (via Facebook):
Maybe you could compare dad to an athlete dying young. And J to some kind of gyre.
Despite this encouragement, I still couldn’t make any progress on the “Stupid. Damn. Wedding. Poem.” So I did the other thing I do best: steal material for poems from pop culture. I remembered an episode of Bones called “The Boneless Bride.” The plot revolves around minghun, a traditional Chinese ritual rarely practiced today. (Although The New York Times did do a story on “ghost brides” in 2006.) The concept of a ghost bride intrigued me, and for a minute, I thought I had finally come up with a workable idea for the “Stupid. Damn. Wedding. Poem.” Then I remembered a very important fact.
It’s my mother who is Chinese. My dad’s Scottish.
Bother.
So back to Google I went. This time I used “Scottish” and “weddings” as my search terms. Eventually, I found this fragment from a ballad by Robert Burns:
Ithers seek they ken na what,
Features, carriage, and a’ that;
Gie me love in her I court,
Love to love maks a’ the sport.
Let love sparkle in her e’e;
Let her lo’e nae man but me;
That’s the tocher-gude I prize,
There the luver’s treasure lies.
I liked Burns’ lyric for two reasons: 1) My dad absolutely worships Robert Burns. 2) It referenced the Gaelic word “tocher-gude,” which translates as “marriage portion” or “dowry.” The dowry idea started me thinking about the Wikipedia entry on marriage (According to Wikipedia, people used to get married for business reasons rather than romantic reasons. Shocking!); about concerned moms and dads in China procuring wives for their dead sons; about arranged marriages; about goats. (Apparently I once read something about a man needing goats for his daughter’s dowry. And so I thought about goats.)
I let these idea coalesce, poured myself a large glass of a very nice Pinot Grigio, and wrote a poem. I stole a fragment from my favorite Edna St. Vincent Millay sonnet and used it in the final line and as the title. The final product seemed like something my dad and J would appreciate. At the very least, I knew they would appreciate the fact that the poem was very me. I worried that maybe my grandmother or J’s sister wouldn’t “get it.” But I thought that maybe if I read the Burns fragment first, as an epilogue, it would put my poem in the proper context. So I did. And then I read this:
A Roof Against the Rain
We did not always marry for love.
Marriage began as business, a mode of commerce,
a means of conquest. The right wife provides
heirs, status, income. So a rich man chooses
his bride without ever consulting his heart.
And the poor man, too, for he cannot afford
to dwell on a girl’s pretty face or sweet nature.
Both men must instead consider the count:
the number of cattle, or gold coins, or allies
that he needs. The number he desires.
So wives take lovers. Or their husbands do.
Every consort pays the price. Some are happy.
Some not. But kings die, and countries fall.
Livestock is eaten. Money is spent.
A loveless life lasts as long as any other.
And is our modern world so very different?
We come home to darkened rooms, sleep
between cold sheets, wake to a blinding silence.
We buy, and sell, and collect all the trappings
of civilization. Sex is a biological function,
like eating, or breathing. Love is a myth,
perpetuated by popular culture. And yet
we seek companionship. We long for
the quickened heartbeat, the flushed cheek.
We savor the first kiss, the next meeting.
We will the phone to ring, linger over coffee
with strangers, wanting to become friends,
wanting to hold hands in the dark, wanting
the happier life, where marriage is a choice,
and love a refuge, a roof against the rain.
The end.
