Loving Friends
For Tan
She met us when we were new to the Caldera
and she a young thing, with a young child.
She and her man were planting a rainforest then,
where the original forest had been destroyed.
Now she’s a grandmother with a house in town
down by the river, with a lush garden (she hasn’t
stopped planting) – jungly shrubs and trees
you can eat from. She feeds herself and friends.
She’s a sprite of her garden. Also
of the mountains and waterways she visits.
Sometimes, when she’s alone in these spaces,
others of that kind will show themselves.
She paints them: ethereal, part of the landscape.
My husband Andrew never saw such beings
but they spoke to him, helped him write a story
asking us all to preserve some of their wild places.
He’s been dead seven years (I still can’t believe
it can be so long). Whenever his name arises,
she exclaims with joy, ‘God, I loved him!’
and I cry and smile, remembering.
He was angel, not faery, but close enough.
Their soul origins, their human affection,
made such a bond that on Samhain night
in my home, she looked up and saw him.
He was crossing, as he did often in life,
from corridor to bedroom – probably
just come from the study where he wrote.
He stopped to look at her, met her eyes.
A moment, a glimpse, then he disappeared.
Meanwhile I (who rarely see) felt the presence.
So quick, we couldn’t be sure. But we measured
the right height on the wall, also we pendulumed.
Yes, it was him. (Of course. Who else would it be?)
The spirits are called by love, and drawn I think
by their own love too, to visit when the veil thins....
When we say goodbye, we hug hard, she and I.
