My sister's wedding was a wonderful celebration of family and friends, unity, and love. The ceremony was everything it should have been - food and drink, music and dancing, laughter and tears, remembering old times and making new memories.

As my sister said, "A Pisces marrying a Pisces on the water...it's a good sign."

Here's to Lolanda and Gerald!
May your wedding vows forever echo over the historic waters of the Potomac and your words of love spin eternally in the eddies of time.

I love you both with all my heart.

I wrote this poem a few years back, as part of my "Sister Poems" series. Lolanda is the youngest of five daughters. I am almost ten years older than she - so, I remember the night she was born. She was born at home. The country doctor had a flat tire on his way to our house to deliver her. His car was left on a bridge that crossed a creek. He and his nurse walked to our house in the dark, during a spring storm. See the water connections again? The name Lolanda is of Native American origin and means "little one".

LOLANDA


where are you
soft round head
with downy nape
solemn face
too young to be so


sea crystals sparkled
on your fingers
you were the first
of your kind to be born


you were careful not
to break your mother’s back
on those smoke filled days
of dark indigo skies


there you are gentle beauty
grown from shadowed halls
where we lived for hours
in blue glass stars


sweetness of innocence
lightness and dew
you traveled with a
companion for the
forbidden fruit
lost in a world that
is forever gone
we found you
there unharmed


a scream in the night
denied by one not much older
claimed my love for all time
and became an imprint
on my spirit forever