The Chiffon of My First Love
Do you remember your first love?
I remember mine.
Not those far too common ephemeral crushes,
but that more true love that lingers,
etched into the mind.
Her name was Mary,
a name soft as a whisper,
a name like a melody,
one that still echoes to me in quiet moments,
reminding me of those youth-driven emotions,
the ardent first heartbeats of original love —
though, they never long endure.
They cannot endure,
for they are older than my memories.
She was lovely,
or so I remember.
She was as lovely as her name.
Golden hair catching sunlight,
her form shifting in that summer chiffon,
her smile and laugh, infectiously bright.
Her features are now blurred by many years,
perfect in the way memory insists—
a fond daydream, an illusion, for just myself.
Love without question,
love without thought.
My days with her,
how time was forgotten,
carried away upon the blossoming wind,
until it circled back,
confirming fully that first love
is never immune to realities —
or to expectations.
It was but a vision,
the dream too fragile for waking,
the moment always cut short.
Mary was like that —
fading before she could stay,
leaving my nights stretched too long,
and my days filled
with a memory
too flawless
to be real.
It is, in truth, not that I still love her.
I do not. I love the memory.
Not the memory of her,
but of the moment in time.
The feeling of who I was then,
young, innocent, and fully alive,
and that is why her features blurred,
because true love, maintained or sustained, never fades.
The face should not fade, while the chiffon dress remains.
She was of my past,
and there she remains.
My true memory of her
is of myself, as I was,
long, long ago —
a fond daydream, an illusion, for just myself.
Copyright 1987 and 2025 M. W. Van Dyke
All Rights Reserved
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