We wrest from the Earth what we cannot

possibly return, the rocks, the Rhododendron

claiming it to be our own; a sad little goat

tied to a pole, bleating for a mother, a ghost 

long slaughtered. Any stretch of land, we strip

and tar and pave, get a shout-out for this 

impudent achievement. People throng

to visit this strange new vista, not caring 

about the footprints left ever after.

In the milliseconds and minutes of my life

gone past, when I no longer am the flesh

of a life lost: I think of you.  Only you

as another year rolls by, full of the fear,

the terror of a thousand milestones cast

away. My  children  &  my children’s  

children will inherit those silver linings

upon the  clouds, the sudden splash of rain

that I still feel I cannot return. 

Of course there’s the climbing ivy

and orchids, running wild, as you trim  

with shears that cut at the grain. 

Are you still here, watching over me?

Is that your hand I feel in mine?

And yet and yet and yet, another year goes by

the  undertow  of  the current resounds

to the little girl that reigns in me, the 

duck we had repeats itself, quack

quack-quack,  searching for you

even when you did not belong. 

Did you ever not belong? I feel  that  now 

between the mountains and the wilderness

real life that flickers, maybe, now, I am free? 

Of the fluttering  diastole  and systole   

in  my  heart and lungs and thumbs, numb.

numb from the cries, the edifices of loss, lies,

as the  colours  turn to spring, we shade our eyes.

Oranges and yellows and red, the colours you 

love spill from my mouth: unaccountable

in multiple memories, and a sense

of a sickness that does not die.

There is where we go, you and I.