Martinsville, Virginia, summer of 1975, we walked so freely that barefoot summertide. Dream-filled country roads of Queen Anne's lace and honeybees, ambling past modest homes with blue bottle trees and playing children. On a humid sweet tea kind of day, eating cold fried chicken and cat head biscuits, as the frogs in the pond bellowed in the gloaming. May 2022, in my springtime yard, it's as if you appeared here standing in your overalls, with blue eyes of a cloudless sky. My tears are brimming, my throat tightening, as a mockingbird perches on the fence, dew shimmers golden on the buttercups. You come softly to my memories, I pray my elder's mind won't ever fade in July morning-enchanted recollections of you. Dave, Dave, all I can do is reminisce through a rainbow in the watering sprinkler, of a long ago kiss. You deserved much more than I could give you. Although my heart of cherish weeps in its loss, I hope you were blessed with a good woman, and married her on a lavender and white roses Saturday, who walks barefoot in summer too. ~ For Dave A., always