My daughter is getting married for the second time soon. She is divorced, with four teenage children. He husband-to-be is younger than her, has no kids, is either brave or insane or both.
Her female best friend is to be maid of honour, and wants to read out a suitable poem. Preferably fairly modern.
Ideas please?

Congratulations, and best wishes Stephen:

Time and Love
--Kelly Vinal

Love might be nothing less than
Tears subsumed to rain clouds,
Frothing over a desert lake bed –
Let this be a dream.

Time might stand-down, stopping
Freeze-frame, every fracture
Or fissure developing in a
Vacuous continuum.

Love, or light, or the absence
Of darkness might spin us off
In parlances, or ‘Poet-Speak’,
Or cubic zirconium diamonds –
Again.

Love, what is that? Well, I might end-up
A stressed-out expression,
Declared not-so-sane; voted
Off the TV island, just because –
Again.

Time, that may be a creation of men –
Explaining death or God or subtle
Shifts between observations
That affection manifests.

Love is that: a legendary emotion
Twisting to infinity, dreamscapes
Of affinity, joyful tears streaming
To quench a desert mosaic

How's this one from A. E. Housman?

When Adam day by day
Woke up in Paradise,
He always used to say,
"Oh, this is very nice."

But Eve from scenes of bliss
Transported him for life.
The more I think of this,
The more I beat my wife.

Or, here's anoth; this by the famous poet, Anonymous:

In the garden there strayed
A beautiful maid
As fair as the flowers of the morn;
The first hour of her life
She was made a man's wife,
And was buried before she was born.

Here is one by Kahlil Gibran, but I would not use the whole piece which talks about death in the begining.
She couuld preface it by saying a note from Kahil Gibran for today or something like that.
Reading from the second stanza onwards: "Love one another..."

Kahlil Gibran on Marriage

Then Almitra spoke again and said, And what of Marriage, Master?
And he answered saying:
You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.
Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/08/2021 08:57AM by Debutant.

How about this - one of my favourites:

MOST LIKE AN ARCH THIS MARRIAGE

John Ciardi




Most like an arch – an entrance which upholds

And shores the stone-crush up the air like lace.

Mass made idea, and idea held in place.

A lock in time. Inside half-heaven unfolds.



Most like an arch – two weaknesses that lean

Into a strength. Two fallings become firm.

Two joined abeyances become a term

Naming the fact that teaches the fact to mean.



Not quite that? Not much less. World as it is,

What’s strong and separate falters. All I do

At piling stone on stone apart from you

Is roofless around nothing. Till we kiss



I am no more than upright and unset.

It is by falling in and in we make

The all-bearing point for one another’s sake,

In faultless failing, raised by our own weight.

Marian
that's my favorite ...
I keep quoting it !

excerpt

I Do, I Will, I Have

Marriage is a legal and religious alliance
entered into by a man who can't sleep with the window shut
and a woman who can't sleep with the window open.

Moreover, just as I am unsure of the difference
between flora and fauna and flotsam and jetsam,
I am quite sure that marriage is the alliance of two people
one of whom never remembers birthdays and the other never forgetsam,

And he refuses to believe there is a leak in the water pipe or the gas pipe
and she is convinced she is about to asphyxiate or drown,

And she says Quick get up and get my hairbrushes off the windowsill,
it's raining in, and he replies Oh they're all right, it's only raining
straight down.

That is why marriage is so much more interesting than divorce,
Because it's the only known example of the happy meeting of the
immovable object and the irresistible force.
So I hope husbands and wives will continue to debate and combat over
everything debatable and combatable,
Because I believe a little incompatibility is the spice of life, particulary if
he has income and she is pattable.

Yes - I love that Ogden Nash poem, too - all of it. Thanks for reminding me about it - I'm about to suggest my sister reads it at her daughter's wedding - she's giving her away and has to make a speech.