This week's ceremony reading is for the Lana Del Rey fans! Never to Heaven is a romantic piece from the musician's new poetry book, Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass. An evocative, love letter-style poem, the last stanza in particular is perfectly suited to a wedding reading.

Never to Heaven by Lana Del Rey

May my eyes always stay level to the horizon
may they never gaze as high as heaven
to ask why
May I never go where angels fear to tread
So as to have to ask for answers in the sky
The whys in this lifetime i've found are inconsequential
Compared to the magic of the nowness - the solution to most
questions
there are no reasons.
and if there are- i'm wrong
but at least i won't have spent my life waiting
looking for God in the clouds of the dawn
or listening out for otherwordly contact
30 billion light years on
No. i'll let the others do the pondering
while i'll be sitting on the lawn
readin something unsubstantial
with the television on
I'll be up early to rise though of course -
but only to make you a pot of coffee
That's what i was thinking this morning Joe
that it's times like this as the marine layer lifts
off the sea from the view of our favorite restaurant
that i pray that i may
always keep my eyes level to your eyeline
never downcast at the table cloth
Yes Joe
it's times like this that the marine layer lifts
off the sea on the dock with the candle lit
that i think to myself
there are things you still don't know about me
like sometimes i'm afraid my sadness is too big
and that one day you might have to help me handle it

but until then
may i always keep my eyes level to this skyline
assessing the glittering new development
off of the coast of Long Beach
never to heaven or revenant
Because i have faith in man as strange as that seems
in times like these
and it's not just because of the warmth i've found in your
brown eyes
but because i believe in the goodness in me
that it's firm enough to plant a flag in
or a
rosebud
or to build a new life.

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Feature image: Amber Baruch Photography via One Fab Day