I am going back in memory and, therefore, time

to the first inklings of love at church camp

in Summersville, West Virginia.  Where those

sermons and songs and testimonies of love

and hell and forgiveness and salvation 

prepared my heart and body for love.

Where stolen, hidden kisses and caresses

were proof of Cupid’s arrows hitting the mark,

Venus whispering, pointing, “There.  There.”

And dreams I never knew I could have appeared.

The years of falling in and out of love,

the word “forever” echoing, the tastes of lips,

the scent of love, the touch forever new.

Days, weeks, months feeling like years.

Beginnings and endings blurred as if 

the time too fast to hold, one heart entering

another – the sheer ignorance of love.

Then the arrow that would not shake loose.

Venus saying, “That’s enough.”  Love and

life and poetry mixing, mixing, mixing

until recollection and reflection settled in.

That last arrow I still lovingly touch.

Hootism:  if you don’t do what is yours to do, how will it get done?