Sammy is the nearest person I have to being a daughter, one who is alive to love. She started calling me "second dad" some time ago, and the feeling is reciprocated. You'll find a little more detail about her if you read the poem "Daughter, and its accompanying note. 

So when Sammy announced her engagement I was both surprised and delighted. The surprise came because she had neglected to tell her "second dad" that she even had a boyfriend that was fairly serious, and delighted, because she deserves some one who will love her, I hope as much as I loved and still love Juliet. I will forgive the "not telling bit" - they no longer lived next door, she'd been busy graduating and starting teaching, then her "second mum" tied us up for the last 6 months of her life. Things do get hectic.

My brain immediately went into a Write a Poem moment, something to celebrate her wedding. There was a bit in my head about colour and black and white photos on the wall. A bit about not dreaming in colour. This led to another section about paired opposites: black/white; man/woman; yin and yang. and that last coupled with her surname, Ying, made me send her a message.

First, I knew her fiancé's first name (Jono) but not his surname. I was hoping that at least it would be one syllable, to fit the meter of yin and yang ... Ying and ??? And I needed to know if he would be wearing a black suit and she traditional white gown. And I hoped not to be too nosy about asking, but at least the poem gave me a reason.

I could not have hoped for a better response with the name: Chan! Not only a single syllable but even has assonance with yang. Bridal white: Tick. Sadly the groom would be in blue, but I could deal with that. One quick extra question - colour of groomsmen's and bridesmaid's attire? -  but I could deal with that, whatever the answer. I just needed to know, so I could write about it.

So I ended up with about 3 pages of scribbled bits that were not at all responsive to making a well controlled whole - lots of good bits, but multi-themed. So be it. Fortunately, I had volunteered to be a reader for a dyslexic boy during his HSC trials, and in maths and a couple of other subjects, there's not much I needed to read. So I started to accept the reality of multiple themes and got a large proportion of it organised. 3 sections, one in the future, one I though of as a bit of recent history (the wedding), from the point of view of that future, and something I then labelled present, from a photographic/science point of view. Plus one loose verse that really didn't fit anywhere but became an "Envoi" - the short verse that often concludes a ballade.

Finally I gave those sections headings, based on various tenses appropriate for Sammy, an English teacher. The tenses are not grammatical descriptions of the verse style, they are a bit more philosophical, Future perfect is not written in future perfect tense, it's simply me wishing them a perfect future. Past Continuous, because being about the wedding, written in its past when it comes about but from the point of view of the future first section. Confusing, but the past is continuous with the future. Then the third. From my point of view, photographer looking through the lens of his poetry, thinking about owls at night with all those rods to give them night sight, but in black and white, about what we dream in, about using photo programs to convert colour photos to black and white. All indicating what I was thinking at the (then) present. So three real tenses, but not written in the style they indicate.

Finally that pesky little Envoi. Something I wanted to give to Sammy (and Jono) - advice from second dad and second mum, about what made for us a good marriage, that left us as much in love on our 41st anniversary as we had been on OUR wedding day. In Latin the ending of a verb does a lot of work. It tells you the tense (variations on past present and future,) the person (you, me, him) the number (me vs us), the voice (active/passive), and one for mood. One of those moods is called "imperative", and it is basically a command. Go forth and multiply. Love thy father and thy mother. The envoi here is less about commands than advice, but the mood is the same. Hence that final "Tense" - Indicative, try these thoughts on for size. But also a bit of a pun - because before the wedding, both bride and groom are just a little bit nervous ... and tense.