For Chee and Stephen

Who I was in the past,
Who I will be in the future –
What distractions these are
From who I am now.

Who I am now,
Here, with you.

In this moment,
You have rewritten my past.
You are rewriting my future.

What I don’t understand about
Who I was or will be
Doesn’t matter now.

Whoever that is
– As we stand before the shimmering altar
Of the unfolding lights of our lives –
I know that we will find out together.

Because this is what a marriage is,
This is the optics of relationship,
The coming into focus of two lives.

© Richard James Allen

“In Fixing the Broken Nightingale Richard Allen treats the reader to a wealth of clear, sparse, beautifully poised lyrics that play off the idea of poetry as a chronicle of life. Yet with his strong instinct for humour, strangeness, frailty, sadness and grit, Allen does much more than this. These poems seem to come straight out of reality and deliver it whole. The refreshing, fully alive poems in this collection show how simplicity and wisdom are still one very powerful combination.” Peter Boyle

The author’s book of poems Fixing the Broken Nightingale, can be purchased directly through http://www.fixingthebrokennightingale.com/