Rocks on a wall.

Do you remember mud between your toes?

Do you remember chasing flying ants with a spraybottle full of water,
watching hawks and dragonflies,
chasing deer just for pleasure,
tracking cougars just to see if you could?

Do you remember jumping barbed wire fences?
Stealing apples, walnuts, and figs from the neighbors orchards,
fleeing pell-mell through the forest after being caught,
rubbing the rock salt from our wounds with wet towels,
and laughing while we did it?

Do you remember the smell of woodsmoke in autumn?
Muscles burning with exertion,
splitting billets of oak and pine by hand,
spending days scrubbing sap and pulling splinters?

Do you remember stealing a bottle from your parents,
and then getting sick drunk for the first time because you didn't know when to stop?

Do you remember laughing so hard that you couldn't get your breath,
then turning red,
getting light headed,
and laughing some more?

Do you remember the feel of a wood heated home on a cold winter night?
Warm spiced drinks,
brandy and whiskey and heavy ales,
dancing round the winter bonfire with someone you loved,
holding someone close?

Do you remember that?
Can you remember that?
The springtime of life.