The Seventeenth

Rain

And on the seventeenth

And on your dress

As to the nth

Degree

We stress our solemn love

A portrait of

Two kissing kids

Rain

Now on as many years

Your new grey hairs

My new grown fears

Of grief

Tie knot of tender hope

With slender rope

We ring our hands

Rain

Drop plinking on the sill

And dampened dogs

That never will

Now know

The time of fading scent

We might have spent

For better worse

Rain

The same that soaked our vows

The welcome wet

We know you now

And love

Is set to understand

With sprouting hand

In joy-ploughed earth

— Christopher James