Conversations With Jack & Diane

                               Apology


	“Diane!” he called to her.
	She turned, her blue eyes meeting his, and she smiled.
	“Hey Jack,” she shouted, her melodic voice rising above
the rush of  wind that blew between the tall pine trees. She moved
slowly, her long, sinewy legs gliding with a smooth, strong,
sensual stride.
	She was a poem, Jack thought to himself.  The very essence
of poetic grace.  And he smiled.
	“Wipe that goofy smirk off your face,” she grinned, sitting
herself next to him, the cool green blades of grass soft against the
taut skin of her legs.
	Jack looked down at them.  “You sure do have sexy legs,”
he smiled.
	“Is that why you asked me to meet you here today?  So you
could drool all over my legs?”  She blinked her eyes slowly. 
“Maybe you’d like to see more.  Maybe you’d like me naked, huh
Jack?  Make love to me here on this shady, perfect, fucking knoll. 
Fuck me like you fucked that Tera woman.”  Her cerulean eyes
sparkled with a deep earnest hurt.  “Is that what you want?” she
whispered, her voice suddenly failing her.  She thought she had
forgiven him, but she hadn't yet.
	Jack reached for her face.  Her flawless face.  “What
happened between Tera and I was a single treasured moment,” he offered
softly, struggling to find the right words.  “You have to forgive me 
Diane. I couldn’t think of my life without you in it as my friend.  My
closest friend.  Don’t let yourself hate me Diane.”  His fingers
traced her warm, sweet lips.  “Please don’t...” he pleaded.
	“Tsk... Oh Jack,” she assured him.  “I could never hate
you.  But forgiving you, now thats another matter altogether”
	He smiled as he wiped the tears from her warm cheeks.  “I'm
glad you don't hate me,” he breathed, taking her into his arms and
hugging her close.
	Many minutes passed as they sat in the cool shade of the
towering pine, each lost, yet content in the silence that enveloped
their touching souls.
	“Wanna know why I asked you to meet me here today?” he
finally asked, his voice soft but perfectly inflected.  So resonant in
fact, that Diane felt it penetrate her, sending a little shiver through
her body.  She looked up at him, smiling as the warmth of his
fox-brown eyes filled her with regaining faith in their friendship.
	“Yes,” she answered.  “I wish you’d tell me.”
	“A poem,” he replied.
	Her gaze narrowed.  “A poem?” she squinted, a beam of
dappled sunlight touching her face.
	“Yes,” he nodded, his gaze moving from her face to the
distant stretch of, exquisitely manicured, parkland before them.
	“You wrote me a poem?” she probed, her brow still
furrowed with a tinge of confusion.
	“No,” he answered.  “The poem I’m thinking of doesn’t
exist yet.”
	“I have no damned idea what you are talking about Jack,”
she assured him, her eyes fixed on his solid face.
	“I want to heal the rift between us,” he tried to explain.
	“I still don’t understand,” she repeated.
	“Well,” Jack began.  “I thought that perhaps we could
create a poem together.”
	“You mean now,” she probed?  “Here?”
	Jack turned his gaze back on her.  “Yes.  Here and now. 
Together.”
	Diane looked around.  The park was empty save for the two
of them.  The air was sweet and filled with just the slightest chill. 
All around them there was a natural silence.  Nothing echoed
except what nature allowed.
	“God Jack,” she whispered.  “It’s so perfect right now. 
Almost surreal in a way.”  She looked at him again.  “Will this be
our poem?” she asked hopefully.
	He nodded slowly, silently; taking her hand in his as he
stood, lifting her to her feet.
	“Take off your shoes,” he ordered gently.  “Let the grass
touch you.”
	She did as he asked.  He removed his shoes as well,
retaking her hand into his.
	“Walk with me Diane,” he requested of her, tenderly
pulling her into a slow, even stride, the massive pine trees rising
high all around them.
	There was only silence for the longest time as their souls
reconnected, their friendship healing itself as they moved through
the wooded expanse, the sweet woodland breeze whispering to
them as they walked.
	Jack cast his gaze onto the sublime perfection of his best
friend and began to weave the course of words that would close the
chasm that he had opened between them.
	
	“Walk this whispered path with me.  Take my hand, please
set me free.”

	(Diane continued the poem with a verse of her own, not the
slightest hesitation in her response.)

	“Drift upon the strength which will carry the warmth of
our love unto every spoken moment.”

	“Yet harken the threat that rises when one within the
temple of a sacred friendship lingers upon the grave recourse of his
desires.”

	“Turning, turning like a spiralled leaf captured in the swirl
of a potent wind that laps at the feet of a lost and wasted life.”

	“Like a harbinger it waits.  Resting it’s feathered brilliance. 
Preening silently as the prey it seeks ventures ever closer.”

	“So close that only a hinted whisper is needed to drive
away the knowledge of a lasting familiarity.”

	“But look!  See the painted sparrow fly.  Like a rainbow of
color against the darkest sky.”

	“Soaring as if an arrow guided it’s quest.  Yet there is a
heaviness in it’s wing.  A sorrow covered flight set upon a fading
beam of light.”

	“Cast me, the beggar shouted!  Cast my weary, useless
bones into the old blue sea.  Sink away, sink away free.”

	“A lost and tainted gift engulfed in the current of a 
heartless ocean.  Deprived of light, washed clean with the dirt of
memory.”

	“Sweet heaven take my hand.  Lift me from this dark and
worthless course.  Cleanse away the soil of my deeds and point
me.”

	“Point me toward that which made me whole.  The place
that filled me with a lite and caring harmony.”

	“The music of my sweetest, most treasured tears.  The
semblance of a ghost this need not be, so lift me.”

	“Walk this whispered path with me.  Take my hand, please
set me free.”

	All around them the wind sang it’s ancient song, scattering
their words into the grasp of the empty park.
	Together they settled down beneath the heavy shade of a
banyan tree, it’s myriad leaves weaving a perfect canopy of
deepest green.
	“Take my hand Diane,” Jack offered.  She entwined her
fingers into his, her gaze rising to meet her friend’s staring eyes.
	“We have walked many pathes together Jack,” she smiled,
her eyes closing slowly then opening again as her lips parted.  “But
we’ve never healed a wound like this before.  With a poem I
mean,” she smiled.
	“I know,” he nodded.  “But I couldn’t think of any other
way to apologize to you.  And I thought that this would at least
begin the process of forgiveness between us.”
	She looked at him lovingly, taking his gaze deep inside her.
	“It has,” she promised him, softly laying her gentle face
against his chest, sighing as his strong arms wrapped around her.


                             The End 


Unpublished Works © 1998 GJB

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