A Toast
1
On this most and least solemn of all occasions:
an occasional poem, a wedding poem,
to append, perhaps, to a pictorial tome
to be viewed long after by their children’s children.
I’ll keep it short and merely acquaint you,
so as not to rudely preempt tonight’s menu,
with the comic history of their betrothal.
He, in an act not known as yet to all,
on a weekend retreat to a mountain milieu,
got down on a mud-drenched knee and muttered, “Will you?”
After drinking his teary gaze her fill
she replied, I think it safe to assume, “I will!”
(for, as you can plainly see, he did and she did).
And all this blissfully transpired amid
the wishful benisons of fishy denizens.
2
For it was on the bank of his favorite stream
that he proposed, which long had been his dream
(though this time he brought a somewhat pricier bait).
Now you might regard this amusing anecdote
as an excuse to further quip and quote
our best authorities on passion, love and fate.
But what good would all that be on empty bellies?
To hell with your Byrons, Keats and Shelleys!
For my part, I’m quite content to leave it at this:
Friends and well-wishers, for now let them dine in peace.
Do not disturb them with the simplest fret,
locked as they will be in their loving tête-à-tête.
Let us serve them, instead, their first and finest fête,
the memory of which they’ll always boast.
But first, let’s raise our glasses and join in a toast:
To Jeff and Joanne:
God grant them, at the very
least, the very most!