Reflections at a Wedding

I miss the beauty of unblemished hope

where fewer slowing shoulds interrupted

the fast flow of could

and all was youth

drifting

drowning

in forever

where we played and planned

lifetimes of lying together
even in fabled fields of trouble
together
days of white and spring and cherry blossoms
that would never die

never

until they did
when all the why's came one day
and took it all away
replaced by something more profound
but less hope and less white
where cherry blossoms die
and love is tempered in
calming seas of good and right

and where I wonder if I’ll ever drown again