this place
in the thin track of woods
behind a shopping center
a boulder and the bare beaten ground around it
littered with beer cans and pizza boxes
a girls shirt with mud on it hangs in a bush
one mans shoe

but its so quiet here
the breathing of the wind
as it stirs the leaves overhead
and makes a shifting sunlight fresco of shadow's light
a crow beats wings into the clearing

who was i with that day
where were we going
a girl but who..who....
i cannot even remember what she looked like
the color of her hair
i cannot even tell you the year
i was a young man in a motorcycle jacket
and engineer boots
was it a dream
dreamt so long ago that it in
memory's eye it was real
no i know the place we were all to well

that clearing is fresh to the mind as it was that day
but time has eroded all else
i wonder who she was
i know i loved her after a fashion
i held her in that clearing
we kissed and talked for some measureless time
i remember her laugh
i remember her kiss
who were you
who

my sweet lost lover
forgive this old man his scattered mind
forgive my thoughtless forgetting
as the days end rush up upon me
i look back with a fond eye on my passing life
if we shared little else
i know we shared that day
and i know that my heart smiled for you
my sweet lost lover