Just Spring

It was just spring (and the world was mudlicious), and on a warm April night I waited for you. For you to beat the city traffic, thread the highways, drive the back roads. For you to come from where you were to where I was. Where I was waiting for you. With good wine, and good cheese. With good jazz on the stereo. With arms wide open. With a heart beating madly and only for you.

You arrived close to midnight. I heard your truck park on the side street. My heart leapt at the sound of that old truck, of your boots on the stairway. I stood in the doorway for you.

Life could begin now. I could exhale.

You took me in your arms and we breathed each other like oxygen. Drank each other like water. Held each other like drowning souls clinging to the last thing above water. Got lost in each other’s eyes.

We sat on the floor in the living room and drank the wine and ate the cheese and talked of our days, our week, our thoughts, our dreams, our love. Words flowing like the wine. Time slipping by like silk in the wind. And suddenly! The sun! It was morning! The night disappeared behind us in a mad dash.

We did the only sensible thing. We left for breakfast. A funny old café where all the town’s old men gathered each morning. Eggs. Extra-thick bacon. Fresh biscuits and gravy. Orange juice just squeezed from the orange. Good, strong coffee.

And then we did the only other sensible thing. We went to the river.

There was river-front property for sale. We made mad schemes of buying two lots, and building in the middle to keep the neighbors at bay. A house high on stilts. Fishing from the back deck. We were young and were in love. The sky was ours for a song! Anything was possible. With love like that, everything was possible.

Spring was rioting around us. Wildflowers bloomed along the highways. As we crouched beside the water, a branch wavered in the wind. But it wasn’t a branch! It was a snake! Lovely and green and swaying so perfectly with the grass. I would never have seen it. I looked at you in wide eyed wonder at what all your eyes took in! You saw each tiny detail. You were part of it all in a way I could never be. I couldn’t believe I had been so lucky as to find you.

I sat down by a tree and watched you skip rocks. Splash! Splash! Splash! Six skips! Ten!

You held your fingers to your lips and motioned me over. I walked over, thinking you wanted to show me the water lilies were in bloom. But there on the water lilies, among all those yellow blossoms, were little blossoms walking from lily pad to lily pad. Ducks! Baby ducks! Hiding in the blossoms!

How had you seen them? Their camouflage was so perfect! Tiny little marching swimming blossoms! Oh, yellow fluff! Oh, my wonderful, magic lover! Oh, how I loved you!


And no matter where you are now,
no matter what you’re doing
or who you are with…


In my heart you will always be in that endless night, that magic day. In my heart you will always be those tiny ducks, that swaying snake. The all seeing eyes.

In my heart you will always be young and perfect and magical.

In my heart you will always be the best of my happiness.

In my heart I will always be waiting –
for the sound of your boots at my doorstep
for the sight of you by the water
for you to come back.

So that life can begin.