I sit beneath maple trees, as their leaves color the autumn rain and fall with infinite slowness. Meanwhile memories burst open like jars of fragrant pickles.

First:

There was I and next to me there was she. Which She? Who was this? And where was I? Which song played on the radio? It must have been a radio hit, a popular love song, "I will love you, truly madly deeply", a song that almost believes in its own prosaic verses As much as I wanted to believe that moment would last forever, when I was in love with the idea of love more than I was with that temporal beloved.

Second:

There I was sitting under a tree. Which tree? What tree? Whose tree? Was it the tree of knowing that lies beyond all this unknowing, Buddha's Bodhi tree? Or was it the tree from which Eve was plucking her apple? What poems did I recite? Was it Rilke's Autumn or Neruda's Ode to A Lemon as I ate that fruit. What fruit was that? An apple, a pear or that deep redness that was concealed between her legs?

Third:

There I was leaning against the window watching water trickle down. What water? Was this the rain? Or simply grief? What did I say to myself? What did others say to me? And did it ever stop raining as I sat there, with my veins slashed, in my blood drenched shirt, to feast upon myself, pickled with memories of sitting, walking and kissing under trees.

…

I close those jars, and walk away. Leaves continue to fall with the rain, under the maple trees.

Written around 2002:09:30 Revised on 2006:07:25 Note: A poem from that early dim period, which I think is salvagable afer a few more revisions.