us, before we were them

The woods there are different now.
Like us it has shed a thousand skins. 
The trees they don't remember us.

I cannot forgot.

I knew you there.

I saw us.

Through the trees we saw each other.

I have circled back a hundred times.

I find nothing that tells me we were ever there.

No rock that holds my footprint.

No path your weight.

But us- we were once.

I remember that moment beneath your shelter when all the world stopped.

You steadied yourself against an aspen and looked up into the falling rain.

We have to go, I whispered, we cannot stay here any longer...

I have never been more wrong. 

It has been decades.

The woods are different now.

I have sat in silence on the edge listening.

The trees have thinned and the cabins push in all around.

My kids have walked here. 

Run under the naked sun.

Splash their toes in the mountain water.

I still look for you between the trees- but there is nothing left.

We stay us there forever and forever is gone.

I remember us, before we were them.

mlb  4/2017