Timothy and Tana were married today, which happens to be Margaret’s and my wedding anniversary. The idea is that they are, of course, coupled forever. I hope it is so, but I hope also that the mystery they are to each other will never be revealed completely, that each of them will always see the other with a sense of wonder that can only exist when there is more to learn.

Both of them are poets. Tana’s writing is so powerful that it shakes me. She intuitively senses where the edge is and sometimes comes so close to it that I feel frightened for her. Reading her poems is often like watching a talented tightrope walker. I hold my breath. Her poem “Between Lost and Gone” for example...

Between Lost and Gone
by Tana Jean Parker

It could be the Russians really don’t know
where their nuclear weapons are.
The memory of my cousin kissing
my nipples before they were breasts
went missing for years—
all that can be said
is I put it somewhere safe,
buried it under the long roots
of the dark pines hovering
over Balch Camp. Left in the echo
of summers that meant sugar and dew
covered sleeping bags, the months
we watched “Red Dawn” twenty times
at least. We were children—
ready with plastic guns.

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Timothy’s poetry is powerful in another way, more wistful, with more longing, not so close to the edge. His poem, “The Wind at Dusk,” is a song that resonates with me as if I were a sympathetic string on a familiar instrument he is playing.The lines I like best from that poem:

“The Wind at Dusk”

And I wish to be more
than I can bear, more than the earth can
carry at one time so that it takes me
in conscious, unbearable weight
and sinks me with the sound of my voice
calling out into the darkness...

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The world has had the likes of Heloise and Abelard and Elisabeth Barrett and Robert Browning to tell us how fine love can be. Now we have Tana Jean Parker and Timothy Welsh.