Remain Single

May the part of you that never gets married wed every lover on earth; the ceremony is bewilderment.

Marry the honeysuckle and wild rose, marry the sound of a bumblebee in a late afternoon sunbeam.

All through the black hours be wooed by the incoming tide; then consummate your silence with sunrise.

Though One and Two were never betrothed, marry the confusion.

Your engagement ring is the uncut diamond hidden in a vein of sorrow; polish the gem your chest with tumbling tears, until the water is quiet.

Neither give nor receive that brilliance in marriage; stay single, remain voluptuous.

Those who never knew this gratitude, where questions simply don't arise, will ask how one virgin satisfies so many paramours. 

Don't tell them that the true bride is an exhalation of surrender, a golden body of breath stretching into fragrant darkness.

Don't tell them that this silver-crowned gift-laden inhalation is the groom, who enters the garden through your open gate of prayer. 

Don't tell them how we meet in moonlit stillness; the heart is a lake on which there seem to be twin swans.

But this is one white-feathered splendor, settling gently into its reflection, on the wedding night that never ends.