The Cedar Tree

a flash of light ... thunder clapped like cannons as into the old tree we scurried ... the mouth of its little hollowed-out gut, yawning like some tired old man from a Dickens story ... perhaps the chin of the ghost of Jacob Marley, let loose in horrid fashion from its binding bandages ... the soft pine-needle floor of the space inside was long enough to lay down on, but not very wide, so we squeezed together like shoes in a box, rain pouring all the more, and dripping off the scarred cedar bark onto her coal-black, jasmine-scented tresses - damp ponytail resting coyly on my bared shoulder ... what now? I could tell we both thought, and the question hung in awkward silence between us, rain pattering like mice on a tin roof, her almond Taiwanese eyes looking at me for reassurance, though I had no more experience than she in such situations ... still, I crimped the edges of my mouth up in the gentle attempt at a smile, and she returned it, eyes sparkling with a "yes" ... odd, that we had barely reached our teens, for what came after that first shy, testing, cotton-candy kiss, played out like some grand romantic movie on the big screen, becoming a magical dance of confusion and excitement, and frightened, fumbling flesh - a rain-spattered, dreamy interplay of limbs that seemed to hold time in its place … 'til we emerged hours later into the golden glow of dusk, covered in soft scratches and pine needles, in a sweet post-passion delirium, and quietly walked home, (in different directions), through the dimming mist, never to speak of it … again ... well … she moved away with her family not long after, and though we had promised each other to stay in touch, I only received one post card from her months later, telling me about a boy she'd met, and how they'd kissed on their first date ... as if what had taken place in that old tree, deep in the woods that rainy July afternoon, was no more than a lark - no more than a dream or charm or thistle on the breeze ... except ... it WAS more ... for me it was the most REAL thing - the most tender thing, the most precious and sweet and life-changing thing ... it was the most fearfully beautiful, most wonderfully frightening, most exquisitely complicated thing, that I have ever, ever ... known.