SPRING MEMORIES



Today is the first day of Spring and my Dad's birthday. Another year has passed. The deep grief of loss changes but the loss remains This morning I am both sad I can no longer pick up the phone to ring him, hear his voice, his stories, his advice but cheered by thinking of him.  My parents stay with me in the memories of the life we shared. 





SPRING MEMORIES

I thought I was over the flush of tears,
as if there is an agreed number of years
when sudden hot, salt pricks are admissible,
now melancholy feels like indulgence.

Dates creep towards us, aware he would say
a birthday is just another day, the dawn of
Spring breaks with blue sky, streaked with
golden memories to remind me of my loss.

He is everywhere, framed his piercing
gaze meets mine as if he is really there,
trapped behind glass on the mantlepiece,
winking in the flickering candle light.

He is in the iridescent labradorite gleaming on
freckled skin, nestled with Lilian’s moonstone,
chained in silver, luminous in love as in life,
they stay close as my hand strays to clinking gems.

He is in the air, the wind that whips up the valley,
the waves that gently foam on sun fired shore,
with the birds he loved, swooping in freedom
as he was tied to the house, his leather chair.

He is in the stories I tell my grandchild,
voice echoing from his fairy tales, played on
long journeys, spooled on crinkled cassettes
bearing his hand, still shelved in memory.

He is at our table, in favoured family meals,
taste his ‘little treats’ imported crumpets,
mustard smeared on pork pie, stewed dumplings,
sunshine custard flowing on apple crumble.

He is in our lost garden, his spirit alive
with the rustling trees, old oak, silver birch,  
plum leaved beech, home to the city wild as
squirrels chase and birds wing home to roost.

He is in the Welsh hills, walking by water,
river splash bubbling on misty cloud,
stepping mossed stones with wobbling children,
seeding lifetime love of dreaming in trees.

He is in the woods, at peace with his Lilian,
sheltered by summer’s flickering green canopy,
warmed in winter’s earth, rich with oak leaf,
gloried in flower as spring breeze sways the bluebell sea.



© 2019 Jacqueline Knight Cotterill.  All rights reserved. 







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