To know each other there can be no fakery...

This poem was written on the occasion of my parent's 30th wedding anniversary. On February 11th 2010 they just completed their 50th anniversary. I marvel at their fortitude. Given the grave situation of my father's health I thought it would be meaningful to post this poem out of respect to them both;


Diamonds & Pearls
(February 11th 1960 -February 11th 1990)
(Jean Ulysse Vergnes & Pauline Jacqueline Cordeau)

Of two like no others.
From separate places you came
to rendezvous – and catch one another’s eye.

Thirty years have brought you here;
a menagerie of attic memories,
slightly dusted, sometimes forgotten...

But time can never alter
what lured and lulled you together;
the encounter, the attraction,
the courting and the love.
From a place called La Shangrila
une amour a commencer.

Thirty years, and a little less hair
a wrinkle here & there
a certain fatigue now.
Though time has marked the facade
love’s strength, its subtle visage
shines, unaffected by the years.

To know each other
There can be no fakery,
no act sub-rosa.
All that is, between you, appears
in its bare truth – naked.

Theses words want only to say
What three decades together conveys;
You have shown your strength by example.
Love is swayed by more than diamonds & pearls...