Symbolic Love

                                       by Brenda Joy Dobson

Two lives shaped long before

the poem, "Love Without Touching," was penned...

From the first firey kiss in winter

to the last on an autumn cool night...

little things forged in time, yet

moving too fast...

moonlit walks,

sweet little talks,

midnight bowling,

impromptu picnics in the park,

skipping rocks across the River Mon,

watching the moon rising, full of itself,

lighting the way along river's edge.

Once, he met her at the train with

a single, long-stemmed red rose,

a symbolic gesture of requited love,

some  "green-eyed gossip" said,

for these undefined, May-December lovers, 

so amorphously different,

one from the other,

like the moon play-wrestling

with the rising sun

on any defined day.

Once, he etched their names

on the front wall of an old covered bridge,

marking their love, in time, forever

before he transitoned away,

leaving her to mourn alone until

his earthly visit one night,

and she awoke to pen this 

bitter-sweet encounter,

in the poem, "Love Without Touching."

Afterwards, he once again took flight

as her heart and pieces of her soul

joined his.

bjd