It was a perfect summer
compressed into a single day
beneath the blazing tree, like through a burning glass.
I have no memory at all
what kind of tree it was
I only see the patches of light
as they wandered, that late afternoon,
through bright green and gold
and how the leaves spoke to us.
I still recall the tugging, the strange sadness already stirring in me then.
Do you remember? We laughed,
your head resting on my stomach,
my fingers slipping through your hair, as one strokes a beloved animal.
It was warm, unbound, and we had time (from where?).
Do you remember beneath the tree,
when both of us knew it would not last forever—
and I, even then, already longed for it.
We lay there for a while longer before leaving each other’s life
and moving on, as sunlight drifted through that tree.
The strange thing is, even now I think of it almost every day.