Try to imagine

where it was,

the moment

inside a memory,

what did the breeze feel like,

certainly there was one,

the glen inside a cove

surrounded in maples and pine,

and short shrifts of sumac

pine needles all across the forest wood

where we as children climbed

only the same tree,

familiar branches,

I sat there last year

he said to her,

as she wondered if or when he might

try to

kiss her

under the oak,

the childhood symbol of growing up,

at least,

understanding that

decades later,

the memory of which

might be less profound

than the immediacy of a heart racing

illusion

of

love,

in the eyes of two thirteen year old children,

holding hands on a public street,

smiles and backpacks and

acne and eyes that searched only for

each other

because

that is what we had been told

that is what we had been told,

is the meaning of love,

in a quiet midwestern town,

where concrete

could easily confuse

the very natural ground

we laid upon years later

with a lover

and smitten eyes.

---

© Thom Amundsen 2019