"If We Looked Back" - or, "A Thousand Sunsets" - written and read by Stephen J.N. Bauhart

Poetry reading - poem: Marriage, love, struggle, overcoming.
For anyone interested, this video is a sunrise over Osoyoos lake in British Columbia. I was fishing one morning and let the camera run. I did not catch a fish that day.
“If We Looked Back” or "A Thousand Sunsets"
If a thousand sunsets from today we looked back
And read our histories of love, and trial, and blame,
Of what things went right, what fell off track,
Would wiser eyes still look at me the same?
The nights that broke your heart, would break it still,
And with hammer swings of futures past
I would rage again with a history of will
To break the heart I hope held firm at last.
If ten thousand suns should rise and fall
Would you vow your vows to me anew?
Do ancient words mean anything at all?
What fell away, in time, and what was true?
Was truth the ever crooked finger,
That wore a tarnished, twisted ring,
That bound my airy vows to linger?
Or their breaking, and the sting?
And would we know where tempests came from,
Those screaming storms that scar a life?
A million sunsets beyond this one,
Would that matter then, my wife?
Would we find that things are broken
Our love lost beyond despair,
Our rings were but an empty token
And bent beyond repair?
But time is crooked, we might learn
In my case, so is the man,
Like kings and beggars, in their turn
Time will bend me when it can.
And if you learned these things tomorrow,
What sins our future might confess
Could you stand to bear the sorrow,
Of all, in time, I might transgress?
Your thoughts are yours, days hence and now,
But I'll roll the dice on who I’ll be
Bet twisted rings can hold the vow
That bends to fit eternity -
Those sunsets will be ours to see
My wife, my love, binding you to me.
- Written and read by Stephen J.N. Bauhart
- Music is "Moonlight" by Kris Keypovsky from the Free Music Archives.
#marriage #married #poetryperformance #poetryreading #poetry #vows #weddingring #promise #weddingvows
Note: The astute observer will note that while the poem is largely about sunsets what is pictured is, in fact, a sunrise. I feel this is an appropriate metaphor for what was done here.