POEM - Prophecies and Placeholders

It was a lovely field in full bloom

Lined on one side with woods of mystery

A road creating the far most border

My home possessed an advantageous observation point

A base of operations between quests

The field was bursting with enough distractions

For a free willed ten year old

All just beyond the barb wire fence out back

Maybe I had jumped that fence

One too many times

For this particular sultry summer day

And the inviting neighbor girl

Was a better option that Wednesday

Or maybe it was a Thursday

Or a whole string of days

Flushed together in my hazy pre-pubescent mind

She was a little older at twelve

She said she was spoken for

But I was offered a concession

I could kiss her cheek or her neck

Hold her in a yearning embrace

As long as I left her lips unblemished

All my usurping advances were brushed aside

Her pouting lips were for Todd

Or Tad or some other name

I suddenly hated all of them

Not enough to stop me

Summer is no time for grudges

And it ended like the weather

A change in atmospheric pressure

And the pastime was forgotten

So serious it seemed

So quickly it passed

She was a place holder

Fates were in play that critical year

Left a hidden message

In a misspelled address

                        On the back of a poster I drew

But the words bore a clue

I lived on Marie Street

I spelled it Mirae, an odd error

Turned in to a prophecy

Kissing my soon to be wife

On a sultry afternoon years later

A break from packing up my room

Preparing for marriage and moving out

Old mementos discovered and shared and pondered

“What street did you live on in Gresham?” she asks

“Marie, I think”

“Well I guess we were meant to be together then”

“How so?”

“Look how you spelled this;

My middle name is Mirae . . .”