Lay for the Day 21st June

The longest recorded marriage in Britain began on this summer solstice in 1883, when James and Sarah Ann Burgess wed at the church of St James in Bermondsey. They were parted by the death of Sarah Ann in 1965.

So we’ll take up the theme, love,
And play through all its changes,
For an old tune’s not worn thin
By time; still the heart opens.

Time’s patchwork’s not a pattern
Seemingly, but a makeshift,
Erratic fit of moments
Of marring and of mending.

Yet moments (early and late),
Nights (and not only the first,
Side by side under the quilt)
We felt had swallowed all time

Sometimes seem still to have done.

Others might never have been.

John Gibbens
from Simples

The Lay Reader: an archive of the poetic calendar