Week 97.
Elder Advice has been distracted from his duty to you of late - the result of the run up to the wedding of his oldest offspring. All of his limited powers were required to deal with the occasion’s distractions, of which there was no shortage. The event had been rescheduled from 2021 because of the pandemic but COVID was not to be denied. It struck down almost everyone in the matrimonial vicinity: the bride, the groom, an assortment of guests and Elder Advice himself. Pre-event celebrations were cancelled. Pre-wedding jitters increased in direct proportion to the decreasing competence of the event space manager. And finally, in what some might misinterpret as an attack of cold feet, Harrison managed to rupture his Achilles tendon playing rugby and required surgery a week before not walking down the aisle with the woman who, ironically, is his Achilles heel.
Elder Advice for Harrison? Perhaps you should have hesitated to put a foot wrong so close to the wedding date. That way, you could have avoided the permanent consequence of your injury - the formal medical term for which is “Sarah’s Trump Card in Every Future Matrimonial Dispute .” The solution? You are, like most men, a hopeless romantic. By which, of course, Elder Advice means hopeless as romantics. However, in the tradition of the noseworthy Cyrano - I am here to smooth love’s way. To help the hapless. By providing a billets-doux in my favourite, unfairly maligned poetic form - the limerick. A work which young men seeking to avoid justifiable bridal bile and spousal spleen should feel free to poach, adapt to fit their own woebegone circumstances, set to music and sing wistfully under their Juliet‘s balcony.
All That I See Now is You (or, You've Struck an Optic Nerve) Some say that I should have known better And in hindsight that’s probably true But when I first saw What a vision you are I was blinded: all I see now is you. It's your fault I now have glaucoma, A serious condition I knew All warnings unheeded I left it untreated And all I that see now is you. You steadily obscured my perception A problem I cannot see through When you first caught my eye I thought: "It's a sty" But all I can see now is you. I can't help but think, as tears cause me to blink That my ocular problem's undue That my love’d be requited If I wasn’t short-sighted And there'd be more to see than just you. “It is clear, on reflection, my sight needs correction, “ I remarked, as things faded from view So I got myself glasses To help me see lasses But the only one I see is you. How I wish I had paid more attention Give my deficit disorder its due But it wasn’t to be I refused to see And all I can see now is you. Now we’re married at last, and my worries are past And I’m blind to your faults, which are few I'd hoped to be spared But my vision’s impaired And all I can see now is you. Was it love at first sight, on that fateful first night When my tunnel vision made its debut? I thought I was durable Instead I’m incurable And all I can see now is you. I can say with precision, my peripheral vision, is gone All I see now is you. And I’m left with these vocals And also bifocals And all I can see now is you.