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
