The scent of warm redwood and pine

and golden light dripping between the branches

of a California forest afternoon

and you lean back in your chair

beer in hand,

and sigh contentedly with the trees.

 

There is no life like this

not like this

 

I step onto the patio

my bare feet dusty and stuck with sap

you smile, I thump forward

and ask about the barbecue

will there be ribs tonight?

 

Maybe this is a thing that happened

and maybe it never did

because it must have been a vacation

and I was a child

and you were a dead man

and the places we meet are as fleeting

as the shadow cast by a moving bough

in a California forest.