October 2010

This is a poem I wrote and read at the wedding service of two close friends of mine:

 

Strawberries

It’s about love.
Like first love back in school
When the pain was pure as clear blue sky
and you were there to hold my hand
as the time went by.
I’d cry to you on the phone.
We’d share heartbreaks,
chalked proudly on our slates
like badges on school bags,
smoking fags in the alley.
We were young, intense and badly behaved.
Alright, we were drama queens
but what do you want?
We were seventeen.

It’s about love.
‘Cause you’re a lifelong friend
and I can’t tell you the joy it gives me
to see you settled.
To see you’ve flown the nest
and found such a perfect place
to rest your head.
And I can look at you
and think yes. This one
is sorted. He’s found a girl
who still – when I see her –
makes me want to look at you
and say ‘well done.’

It’s about love.
You talk of her natural warmth
with both strangers and friends
and she says you keep her young.
And I have seen you
grow into each other
like the strawberries you plant –
little red hearts
turning the soil sweet.
And I see how you
round each other’s corners.
How you soften one anothers’ lines
and as I see your life together
it seems to me that you, my friend,
are more yourself than ever.

It’s about love.
And you moved into a home
with a black hole on the wall
and you scraped and painted
and worked and loved
and turned it into something
I can only describe as beautiful.
And I see you in ten,
twenty years’ time –
she’s putting up shelves
and you’re making the tea,
still with her effortless grace
and charm, still with your
warmth and laughs and loyalty.

And I see you
in a garden bursting
with love and trust and pride
and with hearts
that blossom every Spring.