The bridge of lost opportunities

Light shifts,
the seasons change,
and seeing the trees fill up with color
my heart slips back
onto the bridge of lost opportunities.

I'd spent the day out wandering the woods,
some forty years ago,
sipping the wine-deep reds of fall
through my camera lens
and found myself standing
on the Taftsville Bridge.

It took a minute for my eyes to grow
accustomed to the dark,
but then, after all that color,


to see the old gray floor
dappled with streaks of light
from the cross-hatched sides
and the one bright maple leaf gleaming there,
each color etched into its skin
like some celestial tattoo,
I snapped, and snapped, and snapped again,
and then rewound the film,
intending to replace and snap some more,
and opened up the camera's back
to find there was no film at all,
and patting my pockets found them empty,too,
and now too late to purchase more,
the sun lowering,
the clouds rolling in...

Life lessons always follow loss,
and still it haunts us,
wisps of failure drifting here and there,
and now, glancing through old images,
I see they're full of losses,
chances missed and loves gone by,
and with the falling of the leaves
the heart gives one remembered leap
and then subsides again.

The longing shimmers still,
then fades to loss
and floats,
ever so gently
to that gray floor.