A damp Kohima wakes: a wet sunrise
the drizzle falls: the monsoon’s end is grey:
our wedding day is blessed with gloomy skies
but marriage hopes have blown my clouds away.

Nearby a gift, a mithum grazes grass
and chews with ruminating bovine bliss.
The pots are bubbling to prepare a mass
of food for fifteen hundred; more or less.
 
My Naga best man sits with me in church:
while she in mekhela, her orchid bloom
walks down the aisle – we stand up from the bench –
as warriors precede her to her groom.

The moment comes to say that I love you
to breath the word “amedo” for “I do”