Meet Me in Spring

©️2020 CColbert

I saw you last out by the river with the wind in our hair and the sun on our skin. We ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, on white Wonder bread without the crust.  Our conversation glided from childhood to then, it was early enough to be minus all of this. We talked about our passions and memories,  but mostly how we’d cook our fish and bait up tomorrow.

It was a bountiful day and later campfires, burned with a smoky flavor of mesquite wood. Dinner sizzled in a hot skillet over glowing coals we couldn’t live higher if we wanted to, back then. We were scarlet-clad under the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor, took long hard draws staring deep into the fire. 

We ate a solid meal caught from the clear cool water, dashed in garlic with drizzled lemon, and an ice-cold beer after. The flames grew less, embers beaming green, then blue, then red growing faint and fainter to the point of ash and cinders until they burned out.

Later in the night when the wind picked up, we shared a blanket curled tight together in a knot. It’s a memory I will cherish forever, as we lost touch after… I regret your passage into new sunsets and different women, but I’m certainly glad for that time together. 

Life is funny and we often miss our chance, to wander till the end with a perfect partner. When the rocks in the road distract the driver, and the tires go flat but you keep on driving…

It’s nobody’s fault and we’re both better off, cause you hopped out I kept going. But I wonder now and then how you’re doing out there. Every once in a while I send up a prayer… Ask the divine favors for you, happy times, lots of love in the room, and the best kind of things where you live your life. 

I don’t regret a single moment, cause the memories are here and my thoughts are warmed, I find myself reflecting on the years.. welcoming spring and dreaming of the days, with a pole in my hand and your gentle gaze… sitting next to me in that country place while the catfish bit and the music played.

I doubt I can forget, and I hope you feel the same, but I’ll say it again as I did back then… when we gather up our gear and head to the water, I’ll keep my promise, I’ll meet you in Spring by the river.