While the swing goes on in the predestined way –
endlessly pacing, like all such
furniture must journey –
the background fills with our friends’ chatter,
someone’s klutzy dog makes quite a
clatter,
and I’m one lucky dog with a
brand-new fiancée.
Clasped hands and hearts on that old
porch swing; Desiree,
is it this song that’s such an
enchanter?
Don’t answer aloud – let your gaze
say
while the swing goes on.
Years from now, this moment will
stay
in my favorite memories, thinking of
last Saturday,
and though in years ahead we’ll
weather paint splatters
and deal with your mom – drat her -
but they’ll be counterbalanced by
moments of play
while the swing goes on.
This
was the rondeau that Mike wrote for his wife Desiree in their hotel room one
night on their honeymoon. He had proposed to her while they were at a Fourth of
July party hosted by friends; they were snuggled on the creaky porch swing in
the Allans’ backyard, and it finally seemed like the right time to ask – they’d
survived their first year of school, (they’d figure out the transfer details
later) and there was family housing. Most people would say they were crazy, but
if their grandparents had made it work so young, why couldn’t they? He set her
guitar back into its case (he’d been using as a desk) and tucked the poem
between the strings where she’d notice it first thing. Then shaking his head,
wonderstruck that this was real life, he slipped under the covers. She grunted
sleepily and loosened her grip on the comforter.
