Loving And Leaving

It’s been a very full week. I began it by putting on my running shoes and doing some very gentle interval training. I have done two sessions now and, provided it’s not too rainy, I plan to do another tomorrow.

However, the big news has been all about family. My Bristol son, his partner and my grandson came to stay, bringing with them his older brother, my Canadian son. So exciting and so wonderful to have everyone together if only for a short time.

Now though,  it’s the hard part. Our Bristol family left yesterday and this morning it’s sad not to hear the babbling of our beloved grandson as I lie in bed. Life delights him. I will see them again in about three weeks. More significant is that today we deliver Canadian son back to his wife and in-laws ready for their flight home on Easter Monday. We will all have supper together but then it’s home to a house changed by their absence.

Our next planned visit to Canada won’t be until 2026 so it will be almost a year before we see him again. I have made peace with the fact of his emigration, can see how happy the move has made him but today will be another reminder that love and grief are siblings. I have written about this in one of my earlier posts, Coming To Terms With Change.

Love at some point is always an act of letting go. The poems I have chosen are about acknowledging love and the complex emotions that accompany each act of letting go. The first poem comes from an anthology published by Folklore called Secret Chords. The second poem features in my collection, Chalk Stories. Hope you like them.

We Take Our Son To University

Inside the car

we feel the rhythm of the road; the keening of the wheels

plays upon the skin.

Outside,

the morning is everything October can be - a liquid brightness

so clear and sharp it cuts; its beauty pains the eyes.

The sky is cloudless;

above the lines of the field the red kite wheels, slices

through the air, an effortless moving away from us.

The road signs

mark our progress, like the counting down to the moment of launch.

Ten miles left,

conversation stalls as the power station’s cooling towers come into view,

scab on the horizon of an otherwise perfect landscape.

We fall to

unfamiliar silence as the slip road drags us to the end point

where, like the red kite, you lift off and soar away.

Travelling Home From Home

We drive to the station,

your rucksack crammed

with treasures of the season -

books, the obligatory festive socks,

artisan gin, and another of

those complicated games

you help us navigate.

We embrace, promise to see

each other soon then you are gone,

on the thirteen twenty-five

to Bristol Temple Meads.

Home to a sad coffee, consolatory chocolate, and

I need to rearrange myself

into something in keeping

with this newly reduced state:

the small kingdom of home has

lost citizens today.

So, I make an inventory

of groceries we need tomorrow;

wash and clear the debris from

the pre-departure brunch.

I avoid climbing the stairs,

will leave the sheets on your bed

for a day or two so I can

pretend for a while longer

you are still here.