Summer of 1970
oh such sweet love I never knew
that summer weaved in 'forty-two
spiced, tender tales, attended, torn
for sake that I had yet been born
a moon-enchanted, gangling boy
who took for granted childish joys
such wisdom I’d quite failed to see
for that same lesson came … to ME
yes, I knew well those aches and tears
spent on one lass far past my years
who brought adulthood much too soon
and filled one moonlit night in June
with wild thoughts, confusion, love
flesh, blue, daubed by that orb above
things I should not have yet been shown
that found most others fully-grown
but time has proved one mys’try, true
this clear and poignant deja vu
not dreams recalled, but things once real
that I still touch, see, smell, and feel
her quiet poise, her stirring stare
the pressed lace ribbon thru her hair
her hands that fit like gloves to mine
and tick-tock hips with dips, divine
but though she guided tender, sweet
so much for me seemed incomplete
what she had shared with meager cost
had left me heartsick, dazed and lost
now gone, a bloom of cherished worth
that comes but once, from death to birth
those passions of my flesh - unsure
found mind and heart, years premature
still, there it lay, a blossom plucked
that through the years I'd deconstruct
to search for sense within those beams
of moonlight, meant for older dreams
the change she wrought, I can't express
I still deep-parse that manic mess
and I shall not soon grasp the "why's"
she’d made me her lust's callow prize
still, ALL was not such tragic deed
for she had sowed a wondrous seed
that riddle she’d seen fit to start
had spun dark magic in my heart
And I still taste that herbal bliss -
her tresses trapped between our kiss
I still see soft skin bathed in beams …
and swim her eyes, deep in my dreams.
Copyright © Gregory Richard Barden, November 28, 2022
( number two pencil drawing by Gregory Barden )
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