There was a girl I’d met two months before.
We kept on going to the same events,
and conversations grew, at times intense,
about pollution, native rights, and more.

On one reunion night, I played guitar
and sang the calls instructing all to dance.
I had not practiced well by some mischance,
so played a tape: We danced a Texas Star. 

Then after we had danced, we sat for hours
within the warmth a blazing fireplace lit.
We talked, it seemed forever, and we quit
at four a.m., not knowing love was ours.

And after living wed for forty years,
too soon she's lost to death, she disappears.


		29 October 2023, 
                updated 25 February 2024