The kindest corner of the interweb
Shall we talk about love on cotton clouds
On beds of pines that softly press below the feet
And shall we talk about the day we split
As branches pare from steadfast trunks
That dug their roots so many years ago
We’ll always walk like ghostly prints
Left behind in forests where the children run
We wish we’d made more effort to
Make permanent the words we spoke
Things we did, the skin we touched
But that’s as far as we can dream
On rainy afternoons we live like these.
It’s sometimes messy, they say,
When leather’s wrapped round desperate arms
And chemicals can course through veins,
When lovers drop to scraped up knees
And wish on stars that they had never met,
We take a thoughtful step away
Knowing that it’s far too late
To wind that clock back to day dot,
Undoing work of addicts’ hands.
I often walk past crumbling bricks
In the shape of bridges and rotting forts
And I dream of lives that once took place
Under the shadows that covered sins
And love’s first kiss on picnic blankets.
When old and grey they do return,
Hand in hand they smile on days of youth
That disappeared some fifty years ago.
I always wonder what those bridges see;
What the dying castle ruin may have witnessed
And what will die when they are gone.
do you remember the days
when loving each other
was simply a case
of riding our bikes, side by side,
and timidly kissing
under the willow tree
down by the lake
where we fished
and at night we skinny dipped?