Years and years ago when Holly and Johs,
Britta’s and my two children, were small
And filled with skips and hops, we’d take
Them for walks around a Danish lake,
Taking breaks on benches where I’d tell them
Of the adventures of two drops of water
Named Hydro and Oxo, the best of best
Of friends living together in the lake.
One or the other would one fine day drift
Up close to the lake’s surface and be borne
Aloft by the sun’s warmth into the clouds
To be carried whichever way the breeze blew,
So that Hydro got to be for a week a silent
Snowflake on top of Mount Kilimanjaro,
And Oxo not only got to visit but also got
To be part of the thunder of Niagara Falls.
After which each adventurer rode another
Warm updraft, now homeward bound,
Dropping as a diamond of morning dew
Into that good old Danish lake, and hollering
“Oh my friend, guess where I have been?”
The other replying, “I have missed you!
Come and sit in the shade under this lily pad
And tell me every single little thing about it!”
A month ago today, the news of this wedding
Just arrived, I, aglow and glad of heart, sat
Watching on my west window a fine mist
Gathering into two water drops, spaced apart.
Of course I thought of Hydro and Oxo, but in
Our stories one was always back at the lake.
I watched the two drops gradually swelling, gravity
Pulled in short zigs and zags toward each other.
To my Father-of-the-Bride eyes, my window had
Become continental glass, the drop beginning over on
The California coast I knew to be our Ryan, the other,
Our Holly, beginning in a New Hampshire college town.
I saw them slip, glide, dip, slide, bump into each other,
Become one, become the headwaters of their own
Mississippi, begin the great adventure of their lives,
Going to meet Hydro or Oxo down in New Orleans.
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