There is a road less traveled, paved with thin air and pine needles; I rode it by his side, bumped up and over the pass towards the sky. There was a pool, out of the way, where the stream sliced granite, the cold water chilled deeper by conifer shadow and fern. There were fish, fractal rainbows painted with thick parr marks, spirits willing but mouths too small to swallow our flies down. There, we swam, crawled out onto the boulders, half-naked and primordial — Adam and Eve in a perfect garden for two. Time passed, every hour, every moment holy. We quit our fight against the seconds of the day, we quit our grappling with minutes lost, the hours of life were without expiration dates and we allowed them to slip, with grace, over our heads and shoulders in quiet benediction.
