"Of Camellias in Love's Garden"

Of Camellias in Love's Garden



What the heart knows
hands give back
to the earth—love's bounty.
Love's rime, a coat of age
seeding the furrows. Time's fine
liquid in the eyes of one,
beloved unto death, blessed
in the dawn of her eyes—once more
quickening. All truth tells
in the twinned shoots daring
the frozen fields, the fragrance blooming
true on thickened wax, flush
evergreen: evertrue. The sweet
sap of April, the old thrust,
the bonds between them, an endless
hush. And, now, the bright buds of May,
bursting with happiness, are harkening
on the bough. Take this, thy ring, thine hand
in thee, and with these things, these
tendrils and madrigals of a fair
awakening, I give you these halves,
these now made whole, these sacred
vows opening to the sun on her hair, to
the heart beating there, sire
of love in love with the evergreen
camellia. Let the bloom and rebloom
of love's imagining blossom.
Let the lapping of faith through the land
carve its face upon the sandstone
of the tender age. Let a single graft
perpetuate in a filial kiss of fate. Let
love navigate, and wait. And lift her
grace, and this man's place
beside her, coiled inside love's
heart-shaped locket. And, a new world,
celebrate—this taste, this ancient wine
and twine of souls—a matrimony.


For Charles and Camilla on the occasion of their marriage
April 9, 2005


c 2005 Lorna Dee Cervantes