One Year On

 

 

It’s happened late – but now you’re hyper aware –

it’s not the place, it’s a time that you long for

when the folks you knew well peopled all your years

and you were home even when you travelled far.

And now many of them are gone – gone somewhere

out of your reach, neither street address nor door.

As you walk by the same thresholds, trees and piers

you think of them, often wonder how they are.

 

Some are forced to leave for better livelihoods

and some leave by choice, to chase their rainbow ends

and some have gone to other worlds as destined.

No one’s coming back – you know they’ve gone for good.

Yet you pause at their doors, lost loved ones’ and friends’

but there’s just the swirling dust and sighing wind.

 

It’s a year since Sue departed. I still visit her blog and go through her photos - always a mood lifter, the flowers and the balloons, the skyscapes and kangaroos. And her very own special brand of sifting beauty and colour out of the ordinary stuff of life. 

Nalini, my school friend from my Nigeria days, also passed away around this time two years ago. Both lived in Australia, Nalini had settled in Sydney after school, so when I went to Fiji, I immediately planned to meet up with her. Unfortunately, I never made it.  

September is such a charged month. Cusp season. Hope it's gone well for you.