An Encounter

I once made love in a forest at twilight.  It was October and it was cold with a light drizzle in the air.  We were camping nearby so we could have just gone back to the tent, but we were young and passionate and now meant now and not in fifteen minutes' time.  There was never enough time to wait for things then, sometimes I wish I could recreate that sense of urgency, but it seems lost.  He was very chivalrous; he arranged his jacket carefully on the shrubs and tree roots for me to lie on and he was very gentle.  I can't remember much about the actual sex, it was probably not that great, we hadn't yet had much practice - but the setting was magical.  I remember a strong smell of green, of moss and bark and earth and leaves.  I remember the damp air on my face and legs.  I remember an intensity of feeling, of being in the moment and of feeling a connection with everything around me that would rarely return again.  It wasn't even that comfortable, I had a tree root digging in my back and a scratchy plant attacking my leg, but I didn't care.  Afterwards we went back to the tent and made a fire and drank cheap cider and I kept looking at the forest in the distance thinking: we were there, we made love there.