For my daughter, on what would have been her tenth birthday. We love you. We miss you. Even in the pandemic we do not forget you. x

Ten

 

My darling, this year we must

commune at a distance.

 

I can’t go to your grave

and fetch you back to me

with ritual and gifts;

 

can’t carry you home

in a sling of blue sky

and cherry blossoms.

 

You remain resolutely

earth bound, despite

my incantations.

 

In the early hours

I pace the house bare foot,

looking for a sign from you

 

but find only the penny whistle

of a blackbird,

the gentleness of pigeons on the sill.

 

Where is the ten year old

you would have been?

 

For a moment I feel you

beside me at the window.

My skin goose-bumps

 

against your red hair.

We stand stock still

to watch a Sparrow hawk

 

kill a jackdaw in the garden.

Then you are gone. Slipping

further away than ever

 

folding the earth beneath your feet;

away across the heath, the heather.