Poem: The Wedding Guest

The Wedding Guest

I was that wedding guest, you see,

The one to whom the mariner spoke

And told the tale of worry

In which the life of albatross he took.

A friend of the groom’s family

I was, just waiting church to enter

When this old man bid me tarry

To hear a tale of his center

Of which he needed to be absolved

And so he was, I’m sure of it

For his face no sign of grief showed

But this tale, he told me it

And such destruction I perceived

So that its tale did me amaze

How one man could cause such grief

That I did enter church all dazed.

Indeed, the mercy of the lamb

Is great enough to heal even me,

One who feels that he is damned 

For thoughts and deeds evil to see

But those I hide so deep away

That none might know or see the black

Deep with me stowed far away

Yet those he has also cleansed from my back.

March 2023

About This Poem

This is a response to Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. In the poem you hear the entire story of the mariner shooting an albatross and the famous lines like "water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink," but that poor trapped wedding guest never gets the chance to respond. This is his response. The poem hints at the story of joy and sorrows going through our lives all at the same time: the mariner telling a wedding guest of his sorrows at sea while at a wedding. The picture is me being carried in my wife's grandfather's wheelchair by my groomsmen and dad at my wedding, which also hints at that dual nature of life. And, of course, it's a wedding.