For my dear friends on their wedding day

A Dance of the Sands 
 (A villanelle for Amy and Bertrand)

  “Voici des fruits, des fleurs, des feuilles et des branches 
 Et puis voici mon coeur qui ne bat que pour vous.” 
“Here are fruits, flowers, leaves and branches, 
 and here is my heart which beats only for you.”
                                                     -Paul Verlaine

From Juno beach to the spring of Al Ain,
two steps taken in a dance of the sand,
they found each other two halves of one grain.

Encased in an hourglass, each shell the same,
the sheer walls reflecting a world to withstand,
from Juno beach to the spring of Al Ain.

Though life may unbalance all sand remains
in chambers entwined at heart with a band.
They found each other two halves of one grain.

One heart lightens the other takes the strain,
fixed and equal as the clasping of hands.
From Juno beach to the spring of Al Ain

they are proof that here destiny can reign,
across the chasm of two separate lands
they found each other two halves of one grain.

From Juno beach to wherever the sand
they flow together with his in her hand.
From Juno beach to the spring of Al Ain
they found each other two halves of one grain.