Here is a picture of myself and
my high school boyfriend Gregory in August 1965. We were 17 and 19 that sailing
summer. Young love grew too complex and we lost touch for decades. Now he lives in a seacoast city near London with the ocean a mere walk away while I look out my
window to see the Blue Ridge Mountains and deer
grazing fallen apples in my back yard. I couldn’t imagine in 1965 I would leave
our home state of Rhode Island or the shores of Narragansett Bay. Greg and I
have been internet pen pals since 1999, when I discovered on Amazon his first brilliant
book on popular art and culture and sent congratulations. We talked and keep on
talking. I sat down when we first got in touch and jotted down a rhyming poem
to honor our shared past:
ABOVE THE BAY (1999)
A small boat bobs upon the bay
A mere speck in the tide.
Memory’s the vessel
Where youth’s dominion hides.
Love without love’s wisdom,
Love’s patience, or love’s care
Skimming over wavelets
Shimmering in the air.
Undiscovered sorrows
Just dreams, forgotten soon –
Too busy with the sunshine
Too rakish with the moon
Too full of life to know it
Too drunk with swollen kisses.
What is the stuff of paradise?
We wake to find that this is.
(copyright Cathy Larson Sky)
