There's this place
down in northwest Arkansas
where back in the day
you could
lay out on the rocks
all naked
and just be.

Most times
maybe 100 others
in all colors, shapes, and sizes
would show up, too,
which was cool.

We'd smoke pot and drink wine
and float around
in the creek
with a granite bottom
and impossibly cold water
pouring down
to the lake being built below.

I got the only sunburn
I've ever had
on my dick
there,
That's something
you never do
more than once.

It was always blazes hot,
and no one ever bothered anyone else.
You didn't even need to lock the cars.

And on special weekends,
after the sun went down,
we'd go up to the old hotel in town
and folk dance
until the law said
it was time to stop.

Eventually,
the lake swallowed it all up,
and as near as I can tell
all the naked folks too,
since I haven't seen
any of them
since then
all those years ago.

Things change,
blah blah blah,
and I'm old enough now
to feel only a small bit
of the
time-passes-too-quick-sadness
about them days.

After all,
now if you want,
you can take your motorboat out,
on the lake by where I live
and find plenty of naked people
in this one cove.

But that's a different thing,
what with people
yelling and screaming
and puking and fucking,
and the lake patrol
showing up every few hours
and the stereos spitting out
white boy hip hop.

In my day, of course,
we thought it was somehow
a spiritual thing.

The folks
out in the cove
will probably say the same thing,
when they're old,
talking about way back when
and who they fucked,
and how much beer
they drank.

But in my conceit,
I have to say,
none of them
every laid on a rock
in the hot Arkansas sun
and just marveled
at how great it is
just
to
be.