future memories

you remember how

we drove all night

and got out and walked

barefoot along the beach

hand in hand

resting your head on my shoulder

as we watched the sunrise

across the gulf-

explosive, blinding light

glistening on the mirror surface of

the ocean

and we pledged to come back in the morning

so we could memorize that

sensation of big and small and

the universe and love?

Or, when we drove deep into the mountains

to that old, isolated, run down cabin

My Friend Stan loaned us for the

entire month of April?

The snow falling…

carressing our skin

flakes alighting in your hair

one by one

creating a halo for an angel…sigh.

you looked like you’d never looked before.

so we gathered all the blankets

from every bed in the cabin

and threw them on the floor

in front of the fire we built in that old

stone fireplace…

and smoke started filling the cabin

along with a couple of bats who had decided to

live up in there

and how you fretted and frowned

while I climbed on the roof to

clean the chimney out so

we could try it once again?

How once we finally got the chimney cleared

and the fire going

and the blankets laid out

you took me by the hand

and we walked out into the snow and

made love under the stars

while the entire world

save a bird off in the distance

serenaded us with silence?

How we huddled naked under those blankets,

in front of that fire…

never.even.moving?

Do you remember making love all night

into the morning as the

fire died down…

of course.

of course you do.

Do you remember how excited

then disappointed then happy and then stressed

you were when you called

to tell me about the conversation you’d had

with your editor about

your book being released on schedule if only

the two of you could put your heads together for

the entire weekend…

even though we had those tickets to

that thing you had

desperately wanted to see

that we had paid way too much to get and now

we would be giving them to Stan and his wife

because hey…cabin karma…

Do you remember…

I know this one will strike a chord…

do you remember how we talked

for hours and hours about

you and me and us

and how seamlessly everything

just worked all of a sudden

how we saw into one another

with such perspective

& vision

& understanding & insight–

how made for each other suddenly

went from being a noose around our necks to

something just clicking and the fear

dissipating

like puddles in the glare of your smile…

how we were never going to

go back to THAT place again…

it didn’t need revisited at last because you,

me,

both of us,

finally realized where we belong.

Do you remember

a thousand conversations

we haven’t even had yet?

hundreds and hundreds of moments

and memories

we haven’t yet created?

you will.

We will.

you’ll see.