Readings

Readings to enrich the ceremonies celebrating couples and their devotion.

 

“i carry your heart with me”

i carry your heart with me

i carry it in my heart

i am never without it

anywhere i go you go, my dear;

and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling

 

i fear no fate

for you are my fate, my sweet i want

no world for beautiful you are my world, my true

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

 

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows

higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide

and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart i carry it in my heart

e.e. cummings

 

Pablo Neruda’s Cien Sonetos de Amor, Soneto XLIX

 

“Es hoy: todo el ayer se fue cayendo”

(It’s today:  all of yesterday dropped away)

 

It’s today: all of yesterday dropped away

among the fingers of the light and the sleeping eyes.

Tomorrow will come on its green footsteps;

no one can stop the river of the dawn.

 

No one can stop the river of your hands,

your eyes and their sleepiness, my dearest.

You are the trembling of time, which passes

between the vertical light and the darkening sky.

 

The sky folds its wings over you,

lifting you, carrying you to my arms

with its punctual, mysterious courtesy.

 

That’s why I sing to the day and to the moon,

to the sea, to time, to all the  planets,

to your daily voice, to your nocturnal skin.

 

Pablo Neruda’s Sonnet XVII

 

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz

or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off

in secret, between the shadow and the soul

 

I love you as the plant that never blooms

but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;

thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,

risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

 

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.

I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;

so I love you because I know no other way

than this:  where I does

not exist, nor you

so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,

so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

 

G. Gibran’s  The Prophet

 

Then Almita spoke again and said, “and what of Marriage, master?”

And he answered saying:

You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.

You shall be together when white wings of death scatter your days.

Aye, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.

But let there be spaces in your togetherness,

And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

 

Love one another but make not a bond of love:

Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.

Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.

Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,

Even the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same

music.

 

Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.

For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.

And stand together, yet not too near together:

For the pillars of the temple stand apart,

And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.


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