The wind just curls away to nothing

Wedding Song
by Lawrence Sail

Perhaps even here, among the airiest moments
Of wishing, there can be pre-emptive stillness –
As when the bride, gingerly easing out
Of the limousine, pauses, barely a foot on the ground.

Or when the double-handed knife is poised
Above the hard and soft of the cake. When the pen
Inclines to its shadow, but the nap remains unscathed.
When the bell's clapper is still sounding the air.

Or when the vocative rings are still empty,
Held at the trembling tips of fingers that soon
Will almost eclipse them. When for a moment the light
Seems to thicken to a slanting smoke of dust.

And this, perhaps, is how love stows its gifts
Away, in little traces of silence. As when
The wind just curls away to nothing and even
The everyday waves of the lake are cured of time.

From The Spectator, 9 October, 1993