Wedding Poem

The fact that “Wedding Poem” is an epithalamion inherently suggests that love is a central theme to the poem. Other examples of the form, while not excluding love, focus more heavily on elements of union such as fidelity and strength—spiritual concerns. In this poem, while the spirit is by no means excluded, the focus is on the physical experience of love as it is observed and appreciated by an outside party.

It’s a given that a goldfinch cannot have actual sexual congress with a sunflower. However, the speaker describes the exchange between the two living beings as a portrait in intimacy, starting with the kisses of the goldfinch. Sex is invoked throughout the poem as the bird swoons, and as the sunflower leans “back / to admire” (Lines 17-18) the bird in the midst of their intercourse. There is no ambiguity of the nature of the event once the speaker describes the flower lifting “the food of its body / to the bird’s nuzzling mouth” (Lines 24-25), as well as the bird’s raucous “fervor” (Line 26), and “their / good racket” (Lines 30-31). The speaker may profess to “blush” (Line 33) at this activity but is “glad” (Line 37) to see it—to bear witness—as it is evidence that wild feeling is alive in the world and available to those who allow it into their lives.