Welcome back to The Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios.

I'm Sean Johnson, and today is Friday, May 23, 2025.

Today's poem is by Seamus Haney.

It's one we featured on the show before, but it's been a few years since the last time. And circumstances seem to call for it.

My wife and I have some young friends getting married this weekend. Congratulations to Gabby and Noah.

And this early Haney poem is such an optimistic and tender look at the first days and years of marriage.

As an old form of relationship or acquaintance begins to pass away and or transform into a new way of being one together, a new way of relating to one another. It's called scaffolding,

and here it is. Masons, when they start upon a building, are careful to test out the scaffolding.

Make sure that planks won't slip at busy joints, secure all ladders, tightened bolted joints.

And yet all this comes down when the job's done, showing off walls of sure and solid stone.

So if, my dear, there sometimes seem to be old bridges breaking between you and me. Never fear.

We may let the scaffolds fall, confident that we have built our wall.

This has been the Daily Poem. Thanks so much for listening. We'll be back next week with more poetry

for you. If you can't wait, you can find our past episodes at dailypoempod.substack.com, where you can

share your own impressions of each day's poem, as well as share each day's poem with the people

you like. And finally, it's the right place to become a subscriber and

supporter of the show. For all of us at Goldberry Studios, I'm Sean Johnson wishing you, happy reading.