Poem -- Thoughts Upon the Marriage of Richard and Beth

Thoughts Upon the Marriage of Richard and Beth
by
Joel A. Levitt


Who makes the world?
It dies with every death, it’s said,
And yet, tomorrow it is here again,
Half-masted banners once again unfurled.

Who has received the sacred fluid,
The more to refine that heady broth?
He’ll swim the body’s flowing valences.
She’ll ride the crest of feelings and of thought.
We, we scientific druids,
We, who know not Zen and are not Buddhas,
We, just know the names that we’ve been taught.
They have shared the cup of unity.
They will know the joy of Judah,
That emerging truth of unity,
That lives untold have bought.

In passion, their separate selves will pale
And yet become the more defined.
Together, they’ll refill the silver grail,
And, in good time, they will their turn resign.
But, stay your weeping, and do not be forlorn.
Our world, our glorious world, our mother world,
Will surely be reborn.

Notes:     1.Richard and Beth married on 31 May 2005 and marked their union by sharing the traditional cup of wine.
     2.They are both Ph.D. candidates – he in molecular biology, she in psychology.
     3. From the sixth of the Sheva Baruchot: “… let there soon be heard in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem the sound of joy and the sound of gladness, ….”