When you were here and I was here
Everything seemed just right
Now you’re not here and I am here
Alone, day long and night.
I speak to you and hear you not
Although you are everywhere,
I see you sitting in your chair
And then, you are not there.
I see the plants you used to tend
In their pots on the window bay
Now, watering them, I pretend
It’s only whilst you’re away.
I speak into the telephone
Where you encouraged and advised
Now it hears another tone
And is neither shocked nor surprised.
I snatch a glimpse of your smile
But it stays not, like the dew;
Nothing remains more than a while
Of the things I shared with you.
Everywhere memories intrude
Taunting my peace of mind,
What we shared, each nuanced mood
Until I was left behind.
Returning from a shopping spree
You would bustle through the door,
Recounting so many tales to me
That I will hear no more.
Out in the big World I would see
An incident or two
And store them up so, over tea
I could re-create them for you.
We walked together, side by side
By winter rivers and by spring may
Through pastures and the countryside
And talked and laughed the days away.
We never talked about the end to come
Ans sometimes I think we should have done
And yet, why should we have dwelt upon
The rend that tears in two, whilst we were one?
When I think of all those past days
A whole lifetime served to sift
To show a path may guide our ways
To secure a priceless gift;
Together we have planted roots
Along many a variegated trail
And, as I smiling, see the shoots
from our loving will evermore prevail.
January 2013