By our senior year we had learned
That you had to take opportunity
When it presented itself.
And so when those warm days
Came in late September
We judged them rare and valuable
Far rarer than any class we’d miss
By skipping out.
And we lit out, the four of us
The authorities, such as they were
Being not hard to shake
Riding on clear roads
In the middle of the workday
We found our spot
And sat by the river on sun-dappled sand.
These were the lessons
That no one could have taught us
Because no one had learned them.
This is where we set our bottom line
On what we would demand from life
What we were willing to take
And when we would just walk away.
Copyright 2016