Words collected lately::
Over that ridge and beyond that crest there lies in wait a certain life for us. The sharply sloped hillsides come together where the brook still tumbles jovially through cedar groves in the summer.
There’s a life for us lying on our backs in the meadow, full of lemonade and sharing kisses. A mandolin near your feet still singing sweetly by itself in my head.
There’s a life for us where our arms and legs ache from work at the end of the day, not our eyes and ears. Small white parachute puffs lean with the wind and ascend with their seeds, seeing us as just specks below, happy and at peace.
There’s a life for us where you looked at me on that afternoon we now laugh about, scooting around a crowded shopping cart with your hands full of vegetables.
There’s a life we created in those daydreams, nearly passing out on the couch after one of our too-big dinners. It’s amazing we still made this life a possibility in between the cloudiness of empty wine bottles and bed sheets.
There’s a life for us I’m not afraid to describe… to rip apart its pages and write them once more all over, revised. One hundred times I’ll paint these hills and trees and you can tell me what to change, and every time you’ll see yourself beneath them, happy and at peace.
This life I make still lies waiting, its pop-up pages just needing a curious tug from your licked finger. That moment… that subtly lingering, inquisitive smile is all it takes, and there we’ll be, lying on our backs full of lemonade and sharing kisses.
C.McClean
