Hearts have loved long before weddings,
long before pedantic poems and sweet songs,
before white dresses, gold rings, and long tails,
and finely dressed familial throngs.

And love is even older than that,
older than houses, farms, and all Man’s worry,
older than the seas and mountains
and beaches and clear nights starry.

Love ruled before any rulers or rules,
before the planets circled one flame,
before the sky exploded with light and fire,
before love even had a name.

And for such a thing to have traveled so far,
to have survived the darkness of the ages,
and weathered the cruelties of man
and his army of tiny trembling rages,

for such a thing can only be a force unmatched,
unequaled in our minds and in our stories,
in our hopes and wishes and dreams
and all the tales of passing glories.

After all that, love is in this place, here and now,
with any two people prepared to say
that love is the sinew that
promises to make tomorrow better than today.