My Mother's Wedding Day

My mother told me that on their way back to Corpus Christi, after their wedding ceremony in Kingsville on April 21, 1926, she and my father stopped their car on a curving beach of Corpus Christi Bay. The day was hot, but as the sun began to go down, there was a cooling breeze from the water. She took off her hat, a 1920s style cloche, and shook her hair out into that breeze. The red light of sunset caught it, and my father, looking at her in amazement, said, "Thelma! I didn't realize I had married a red-headed woman."

Thinking back on the many times she told me this story, today I suddenly decided to put it into a poem.

SUNSET
An April day, with sunlight's warmth attendant
Upon a bride with violets in her hand,
Is captured in a memory resplendent
With all that sweetness, near a seaside strand.
The happy pair have stopped to rest. The ocean
Lies still beneath the gold and crimson sky.
She takes her cloche off, and the breeze's motion
Lifts free her auburn hair, so that is why
The sun now rests, reflected like a blessing,
Upon her head. The sparkle of the bay
Is reddened by a radiance now addressing
With russet gleams the gladness of the day.
Her husband looks in wonder at his bride,
As sunset settles on the sea's slow tide.