Poem 20 Marriage Bed

Everything about weddings is stressful.  You are attracted to someone - that’s not too painful. Then you fall in love and realise that you love someone enough to want to live with them, for ever. It’s getting harder; you’re losing your independence, your freedom but can’t seem to help yourself.  You both indulge in the rituals of human romance, accept the pains of acceptance and rejection.   You change your minds, panic, and make up. Then there’s the sex thing; it should be simple, but there are painful traps for the unwary. You get engaged, spend a fortune on the ring, tell your parents and wait for the thunderclaps!
 
As for the lead-up to the wedding day – the pressures are enormous on both sides.  Surely you shouldn’t spend so much on a one-use dress!  The stag night and hen party don’t come cheap.  The flowers, the champagne, the hotel and catering will bankrupt you. And, what about the wedding invitations to send, the people to invite but keep apart, the choice of bridesmaids?  Caught up in this merry-go-round you both wish it would end - and soon.  Even the wonderful ceremony, the inevitable limelight, the endless speeches, take their toll.  So why do it?  Why put yourself through so much debilitating pressure?
 
The answer is that once you’ve embarked on the long march to the altar, there is no choice.  Once started you may as well resign yourselves to the fact that becoming husband and wife, husband and husband or wife and wife is an endurance test.  It is only after the wedding day that you can relax.  When all you’ve wanted for such a long time is to be alone with each other, it will such a relief to disappear together and take stock of things in each other’s arms.  From then on everything will be easy!  Won’t it?
 
My sister, Angela, is a very skilled needlewoman.  For a family wedding some years ago, she sewed the couple a beautiful quilt.  To me, it was a symbol of their love and loyalty to each other, but also, a physical shield, where they could be together, free from the demands of an inquisitive world.

     Wedding Quilt
   
When the wedding feast
is in full crush and mingle,
when the ties are slung askew,
and clean, white shirts
are stained with festive food,
and folk have lost that pious
once-a-year-in-church look,
when the banquet hall is full
of loosened corset chatter,
then the change begins.
 
The cold, white, wedding cake gives way
to dark delights of nut and glace fruit,
the bridal veil, now tossed aside, awaits
its crumpled fate behind some drawer.
and, spread upon the marriage bed,
its silken pattern woven fine with skill,
the handsome, hand-wrought wedding quilt
becomes a secret trysting place,
of cotton thread and love-worked lace,
where everything is soft and sweet,
and rumpled sweethearts safely meet.
 
 
                                 For Liz and Chris