Photo by Caroline Forbes

Sestina for a Wedding

for Helen Szirtes and Richrd (Rich) Horne, marrying today, 13 June, 2009


Some girls insist a partner should be rich,
or fit at least: a footballer, male model,
a six-pack hunk with wealth or land or power,
a duke, a king, an emperor…well, no,
not quite a godhead, but a decent catch:
a proper big fish in a proper sea.

Some demand love sweep them away, the sea
complete with sea-nymphs in a tempest, rich
and strange, transforming, sudden as a catch
in the throat, the proper Shakespearean model
of romance to whom the answer cannot be No,
because such love carries an absolute power.

Some, grimly sensible, reject the power
of imagery. They deprecate the sea
and shun the rhetoric. Their no means NO!
Out for a meal they’ll not pick one too rich.
They want plain food. They follow Cromwell’s model.
They read the small print and can spot a catch.

Some think love is an ailment that you catch
while waiting for a train. Love’s loss of power
is weakness, the lovelorn a sick role-model,
all passion the plague of a polluted sea,
and yet they end up loving, weak but rich
in pleasure, saying No to the big No.

Some can’t love at all. They harbour no
illusions but might marry, if only to catch
the last bus before loneliness. Once rich
in time, they come to know time’s heavy power
is overwhelming, a slow creeping sea.
The model marriage now is last-year’s model.

But we are who we are, our only model,
and no-one here is likely to say No.
An hour away or so from the North Sea,
we stand and listen, straining ears to catch
the sound of happiness and know the power
of love, the partner certain to be Rich.

This is the sea. Before us is the model.
For Helen and Rich the big Yes cancels no.
Love is the generous catch. Here’s to its power.




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Written for the occasion - and why should we not write for occasions? To order? To please? For sheer delight, pursuing the sestina through its windings? It is a great day, so we write, as well as we can, making what blessing we can. This poem is part of the service. There is another that is for the reception.