Married Love
by Tao-Sheng 

You and i
have so much love,
that it
burns like fire,
in which we bake a lump of clay
molded into a figure of of you
and a figure of me.
then we take both of them,
and break them into pieces,
and mix the pieces with water,
and mold again a figure of you,
and a figure of me.
i am in your clay.
you are in my clay.
in life we share a single quilt.
in death we will share a single coffin.


Wear Me
by Robert Kogan

I want you to wear me
comfortably,
as you would a dress,
or the silver necklace that you wear
around you neck.
comfortably, so that I am always
next to you:
but most important --
something you decide
each morning to select.

Decade
by Amy Lowell

When you came, you were like red wine and honey,
and the taste of you burnt my mouth with its sweetness.
now you are like morning bread,
smooth and pleasant.
i hardly tast you at all for i know your savour,
but i am completely  nourished.

Marriage is not
a house or even a tent
it is before that, and colder:
the edge of the forest, the edge
of the desert
the unpainted stairs
at the back where we squat
outside, eating popcorn
the edge of the receding glacier
where painfully and with wonder
at having survived even
this far
we are learning to make fire

I want to breathe
you in I'm not talking about
perfume or even the sweet odour
of your skin but of the
air itself I want to share
your air inhaling what you
exhale I'd like to be that
close two of us breathing
each other as one as that.

Prayer for a Marriage
by Steve Scafidi

When we are old one night and the moon
arcs over the house like an antique
China saucer and the teacup sun

follows somewhere far behind
I hope the stars deepen to a shine
so bright you could read by it

if you liked and the sadness
we will have known go away
for awhile – in this hour or two

before sleep – and that we kiss
standing in the kitchen not fighting
gravity so much as embodying

its sweet force, and I hope we kiss
like we do today knowing so much
good is said in this primitive tongue

from the wild first surprising ones
to the lower dizzy ten thousand
infinitely slower ones—and I hope

while we stand there in the kitchen
making tea and kissing, the whistle
of the teapot wakes the neighbors.

Since Feeling Is First
by E.E. Cummings 

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world
my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady I swear by all flowers. Don't cry
-the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says
we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis

The Master Speed
by Robert Frost

No speed of wind or water rushing by
But you have speed far greater. You can climb
Back up a stream of radiance to the sky,
And back through history up the stream of time.
And you were given this swiftness, not for haste
Nor chiefly that you may go where you will,
But in the rush of everything to waste,
That you may have the power of standing still--
Off any still or moving thing you say.
Two such as you with such a master speed
Cannot be parted nor be swept away
From one another once you are agreed
That life is only life forevermore
Together wing to wing and oar to oar.

somewhere i have never traveled
by e.e. cummings

somewhere i have never traveled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skillfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals

the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

Let your love be stronger than your hate and anger.
Learn the wisdom of compromise,
for it is better to bend a little than to break.
Believe the best rather than the worst.
People have a way of living up or down
to your opinion of them.
Remember that true friendship
is the basis for any lasting relationship.
The person you choose to marry
is deserving of the courtesies
and kindnesses you bestow on your friends.
Please hand this down to your children and
your children's children.

Touched By an Angel
By Maya Angelou

We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness 
until love leaves its high holy temple 
and comes into our sight 
to liberate us into life. 

Love arrives 
and in its train come ecstasies 
old memories of pleasure 
ancient histories of pain. 
Yet if we are bold, 
love strikes away the chains of fear 
from our souls. 

We are weaned from our timidity 
In the flush of love's light 
we dare be brave 
And suddenly we see 
that love costs all we are 
and will ever be. 
Yet it is only love 
which sets us free.

Kahlil Gibran on Marriage 
From Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet

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.

The Owl and the Pussycat
by Edward Lear

The Owl and the Pussycat went to sea in a beautiful pea green boat,
They took some honey and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five pound note.
The owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
“O lovely Pussy! O Pussy my love,
What a wonderful Pussy you are,
You are, you are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!”
Pussy said to the Owl, “You elegant fowl!
How charmingly sweet you sing!
O let us be married! Too long we have tarried:
But what shall be do for a ring?”
They sailed away for a year and a day,
To the land where the Bong-tree grows
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood
With a ring at the end of his nose,
His nose, his nose,
With a ring at the end of his nose.
“Dear pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling
Your ring?” Said the piggy, “I will.”
So they took it away, and were married the next day
By the turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon, the moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.

Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms
by Thomas Moore

Believe me, if all those endearing charms,
Which I gaze on so fondly today,
Were to change by tomorrow, and fleet in my arms,
Like fairy gifts, fading away!
Thou wouldst still be ador’d, as this moment thou art,
Let thy loveliness fade as it will,
And, around the dear ruin, each wish of my heart
Would entwine itself verdantly still!
It is not, while beauty and youth are thine own,
And thy cheeks unprofan’d by a tear,
That the fervour and faith of a soul can be known,
To which time will but make thee more dear!
No, the heart that has truly lov’d, never forgets,
But as truly loves on to the close,
As the sunflower turns on her god, when he sets,
The same look which she turn’d when he rose!

My Bottom Line
by Julia Alvarez

You are my bottom line, my love, the net
That catches me each time I take a leap
Toward an absolute that isn’t there
But appears dispersed in the relative:
Warm supper waiting when I get in late,
My folded long johns on the laundry stack,
The covers on my side turned sweetly down
When finally I head upstairs from work
That couldn’t wait till morning, the love note
Tucked in my suitcase for my night away.
It says the obvious, the old clichés
I wouldn’t want my friends to know we use
For love. And god forbid my enemies
Should get hold of these endearments,
So banal, I would lose my readers’ trust
If someone published them under my name.
But still as I write mine (with a smiley face)
And slip it under the pillow on your side,
Or when I read yours in a hotel room
I feel more moved than by a Rilke poem
Or a Tolstoy novel or a Shakespeare play.
My love grows stronger with the tried and true
If it comes from you. More and more as we age
And the golden boys peer out of the magazines
With their sultry looks and their arched brows,
I’m so relieved I’m not an ingénue
Searching for you at parties, single bars.
I have you, waving when my plane gets in,
Curling your body in the shape of mine,
My love, my number one, my bottom line.

Lady Love
by Samuel Beckett

She is standing on my lids
And her hair is in my hair
She has the colour of my eye
She has the body of my hand
In my shade she is engulfed
As a stone against the sky
She will never close her eyes
And she does not let me sleep
And her dreams in the bright day
Make the suns evaporate
And me cry and laugh
Speak when I have nothing to say

Apache Wedding Blessing
(no known author)

And now you will feel no rain,
For each of you will be shelter for the other.
Now you will feel no cold,
For each of you will be warmth to the other.
Now there will be no loneliness,
For each of you will be companion to the other.
Now you are two persons,
But there is only one life before you.
May beauty surround you both in the journey ahead and through all the years.
May happiness be your companion
And your days together be good and long upon the earth.