Poem: wherever you are ... For Mammy

wherever you are, there I am, wherever I am, there you are

For Mammy 

I call out to you when I run through the underpass, 

my words echoing back from the walls in the cold, still air.

 

And when I pass the quarry, I throw the same words

across the excavated chasm into a towering wall of layered sand.

 

And again, as I cross the motorway, high above the traffic.

I let them ride the bitter wind rushing from the North Downs.

 

And finally, heading home through Moorland Wood, I stop

and shout them to the tops of the spindly light-seeking trees:

 

wherever you are, there I am, wherever I am, there you are, 

imagine them floating back down to me, through sunlight

 

and shadow, like leaves yielding to autumn - gold, russet, copper -

the colours you loved. And now they are like blessings.