I remember music
where silence sits alone.
I remember grass and stone
and patchwork beds
of bright flowers
where there is bare ground.

I remember walking with you;
talking as we went,
making noises that said
we cared about each other.
I remember you,
where there is silence.

Still places where water runs soft
old woods with dryads hidden deep,
sounding of age and ages, and making
the harmony of time and and solitude.
I remember towns
where there is slag.

There is an emptiness that
I call self,
where you lived and talked and walked
and taught me how to sing.
and there is no filling it, for
you were a singular event.

Yet you were,
and that is a thing to guard
and turn again in wond'ring mindseye fingers
in places where water runs soft,
and pools in glassy clouds of remembrance;
I remember.  I touch again.

©  Copyright, 2000; Malcolm Beckett