Rapture recalled

There were five days in the summer of my thirtieth year that are kept in a treasure box, tucked under a rock wall of guilt, brought out for viewing only when the light and task of keep on keeping on wanes.
 The unrelenting August heat, on a scrub-oak cloaked California hillside was coursing through my veins, affirming youth's naive notion  that it will always be as such. Days of  endless languor, where playing, loving were transposed and quilted over rational reasoning,  like been kept in a hell/heaven lock box.

  I can open that lid and find myself on the same emotional flood plain  decades later.

In the waning days of my fifties, reminiscing of that madness, I wonder if a same passion that colors barren, ordinary life's landscapes for decades afterwards will ever spill over the banks of my heart.


Pathos, penance, the luxuries of Eros and sin. Unrequited desire, false memories the steep prize.

 Forbidden Eden, fallen Eve, outcast.