Come, let us go, my friend, to that place in the forest

where we once together stood,

between the birch trees and among the ferns

with the sun streaking through

the limbs and leaves and the late-summer air.

Come, let us go to that place

with the elephant-skin beech trees around us,

where we gazed into each other’s eyes on that day so long ago

and swore the oath of our lives,

forsaking all but this one thing:

that the granite in our hearts

would be turned inside out in the September sun,

that our best ideas for a world to come

would evaporate like the morning dew

on the maidenhair ferns at our feet;

that eye to eye and man to man,

across whatever roads we had each traveled to that place,

in that clearing in the woods,

in that hour, and in all the hours and days to come,

that for eternity our being,

from the core to each and every finger and toe,

all of who and what we are, and all of what we have

would be given absolutely and totally to the One we could not name,

but whom we loved with a love so all-consuming

we could no longer deny.

Oh, how my soul aches with that love in this hour,

no less unremitting than on that day,

only turned more gold than crimson,

more like the beech tree than the birch,

as I pray for the fullness of this day’s harvest.

So I beseech you, my friend, come,

let us go to that place in the forest where we once together

stood between the birch trees and among the ferns

with the sun streaking through the limbs and leaves

and the late-summer air.

Come with me now to that clearing,

and let us feel together the sun on our now graying hair;

and with that blessing, let us finish what we have yet to do together.