My boyhood friend and I

grew up as one, there are no days

no dates, no moments

when we were unknown to one another,

I have known my friend longer,

and better, than even my own brother,

five years younger.

My boyhood friend and I

played hard, devoted to a life outdoors,

there were no ravines unexplored, 

no trees unclimbed,

no wee sidewalk cracks

unchecked for signs of life,

no passing cloud or storm unregarded.

It is true that with age

with drifted, each to our own path,

that is the inevitable way,

and so it was nice,

and more than nice, to reacquaint

some twenty years ago, 

as adults, with but few vestiges of youth.

The raw emotion felt upon the laying-on of eyes 

was a jolt,

the embrace that followed was tentative

before something primal stirred,

becoming a deep embrace, a kind of lovers' hug,

and we knew all was as it was 

though years had passed.

Since that reunion

we have deepened the friendship

so long dormant.

My love for my own brother

could not be more sincere or true.

We talk and bring back memories, we talk 

of today's adventures and vicissitudes.

We talk as fathers, as husbands,

as those who have trod the streets of business.

We talk of parents gone too soon,

Of a parent recently gone,

Of life as it was and as it is.

We take comfort in each other,

amuse each other, support and listen to each other.

And truth be told, we annoy each other

with our oft-told-tales grown stale, 

our likes and prejudices,

our adult idiosyncrasies,

it matters not, not in the least, 

our frustration ends, always, in grins and hugs

and twinkling eyes, such is our friendship.

In the end we complete each other

in a way a spouse cannot,

for we've known each other longer,

from the innocence of childhood, without motive, 

to what we are today, there is nothing unrevealed between us,

we are as infants and old men all at once,

neither here nor there, entirely.