Epithalamium

For Lauren 

Good advice was of no use in the garden, 
reason only rudimentary in her 
who slouched toward the tree and took unflinching 
what was needed. 

She was naive, knowing nothing of hard labor, 
the end of indolent, do-nothing days, or even dumb fear
that could have stopped her. Not yet imagining a storm
nor watching shadows gather over God’s brow, she rebelled 

perhaps painfully, but more likely drawn to that taste 
by a distant song in her sensitive hands, divine tuning of her untried body.
Eve was no wilting daisy, resisting even God to obey 
the compass buried in her heart. 

It was always a trick question. 
World-young she sensed that to enter everything 
one must leave everything, so that marriage makes us break
excellent rules, tear down walls to find the world that is our soul. 

Stumbling, we do not learn our way toward love 
but, as Eve to Adam, come together like flung planets,
with no option to avoid collision. We choose by not choosing
and without searching, are found.