Per Chance

this one is about long lost love

Per Chance

 

Part 1

 

The fire crackled and the flames jumped in the stone fireplace

As she opened the door with warming brown eyes featured on her face.

“Come into my storm shelter”, she offered in her low, husky tone;

And she brushed back her brown locks to signal that she was alone.

 

It had been a long journey on this hellish, windswept winter’s day;

The arctic blast had dropped a deep white blanket as I was on my way.

My truck had fought a good fight but the fury proved too much; and

It died four miles back, frozen by the solstice, the icy touch.

 

She saw me from afar as she slowly rolled up to my trudging side;

Rolled down her window slowly and looked a while and offered me a ride.

Her hair was partially hidden by the stylish cap, but I noticed shoulder locks;

Then she thought of her nearby cabin and offered “Meet you up there with a knock.”

 

I was stunned by her beauty and oh, that voice of hers was something to behold.

Her shining eyes, chiseled cheeks and blood-red lips made me forget the deathly cold.

She watched me very closely as I slowly came inside to the welcome fire’s glow

And offered hot tea by the fire once she removed my coat very slow.

 

She sat across from me, the fire in between, as we both gazed into the flames

She began to speak as she looked back at me with chat, never asking my name.

My body responded to the fire as our conversation breached into the winter’s night.

And somehow I sensed that I’d been here before; that this moment seemed so right.

 

She began to tell a story of her life years ago, a ditty of a love once known in time.

At once we were at Princeton, in her world of tree-lined walkways and stones of lime.

She’d met a man one leaf-filled, colorful autumn day; her heart she gave to him away.

But life has many twists and turns; the calls and cares of life he could not keep at bay.

 

She turned to me with swollen eyes and a cracking voice and said “How are you, Rick?”

I startled with eyes wide open and studied her face; searching and waiting for something to click.

And then it dawned upon me as I looked her way again to see a tear upon her cheek.

It was Rachel, raven Rachel, the one for so many years whose face I did seek.

 

Steve

 

May 20, 2009