Celestial Vows

By Joel Passey

It is beyond far more

Than the lush green of earth

Or death’s solitary shadow

Or this soon deficient world

That we go now unto the Lord of Hosts

To make of two

A bond of one.

And so we enter

This sanctum white and holy;

A room where silvered glass

Gleams on either side

Of where we come to kneel.

We look up to see ourselves

Forever moving one image after another

Along that splendid curve of time into perfection.

We know that where we see

Our likeness vanish

From our mortal sight,

We yet may be

A timeless pulse.

Begetters of life’s finest form;

Creators of the Will incarnate.

We rise on our dreaming

Hearts or seem to rise,

Up beyond this regal room

Feeling the pure joy

That God himself must have felt

When in the mirrors of endless

Moons he stood gazing

At the everlasting image of himself

In man. Gazing with one

So lovely in white,

So soon from heaven come.

It is time now. “Here, take my hand in yours,

And let us merry be and here agree to remain

True for all eternity.” They must be smiling

Now upon us. “Yes, see Them there

In the quickened glass!”

We listen into our own deep

Self-reflections and hear a voice

Touch us out on the eternal crossroads

Of our love saying, as only God

Himself could say,

“It is good.”