When does a wedding start?

I’m not talking about a Marriage, that’s another movie.
Was it when I built that marriage bed,
in that Hillend shared house,
elevated with room beneath to store my film things
when I asked if I could move into your life?

I don’t remember making a proposal, not this time,
it was more like that line of Paul Kelly’s
about how “we fell into each other”

I do remember having the rings made for us to the soundtrack of Neil Young.
That seemed right, although mine was really uncomfortable so I stopped wearing it early.
Was it ‘mother’s and daughters’ the reason that you wore yours?

Was it the things we filled our mind with, about significance and signs in our world? I know I was aware you were my female ‘Other’.
I remember you told me that after seeing The Exorcist movie you were often terrified of the dark at night.
Did my warm body beside you in that bed help keep that away? I never asked.

Maybe the joy of it started when all those women began kneading the chapati dough for the wedding meal.

I’ve often thought of ‘auguries’ and omens with my horror,
when mowing the yard the night before,
I mowed apart the nesting bantam hen protecting her chicks with her wings.

I know how it hurt to tell my city friends, who arrived with an echinda that they moved from the road, how territorial they are, fixed to place and they’ve now taken it away from a lifetime partner and young.

There were lots of filmmaker friends and cameras, and results of variable quality.
I’m happy to have all this. There’s happiness here (and a lot of hair!)

Tired at the end, I remember asking someone to film me when I wanted to run and hide.

I’ve never shown you this.


Music by  Steve Gutheinz, ‘Clear Glass’ and ‘Watchers’
‘We are Poetry’ – Robert Shirley Kelly
‘Wonder ‘ (featuring eebee generdyn)
all licensed from Musibed
and a bit of Neil Young, ‘On the Beach’ used without permission but thanks for the soundtrack of our lives.