With the help of my co-editor for Word Salad, Jean Jones and his edits to a longer poem, I came up with this new poem. One could consider this either a new poem or a revision of another.

Trying to make an old love poem work

I think that what makes this
poem powerful to me,
is the scene that I capture,
it lasts just a moment
but only now, 17 years later,
did it hit me,
what it is about.
In the scene,

three of us are walking
in a small field -
the girl I loved,
myself and her friend,
that we had come to visit.

We came upon a swing
and as I remember it,
I’m in front of her
pushing her gently…

It wasn’t the way her hair
was caught in the sunlight
in front of me,
it wasn’t the smooth
calming, undulating motion
of the swing.

It was what happened in that moment.
For a moment there,
one hypnotic moment,
looking into each other's eyes,
how long, I don’t know,
half a minute or ten minutes,
and everything faded from my awareness
and I knew she was aware
of nothing else, as well.
I remember.