I received a message from you
but when I clicked on Reply
my predictive text
trying to be helpful
offered me a choice
of three words
to start with

I  You  The

not an impressive option
you might think
but on reflection
"I"
had "You"
in the centre of my mind
and for a robot
guessing
what I wanted to say
two out of three wasn’t bad

If I loved somebody
as much as I love you,
if I loved somebody
as long as I've loved you,
how could I ever stop loving them?

If they had gone away from me,
if they didn't want to know me any more,
if they were dead to me,
even if they were  
literally
dead,
I could never imagine not loving them.

You don't go to that much trouble
for nothing.

Forgetting,
according to the theory,
is not something that just happens,
it's an active process.

Well, that's the theory,
but we all know, we don't always mean to forget.
Sometimes there are more important things,
or more interesting,
for us to remember.
And sometimes our brain does the forgetting for us,
without our wishing it.

The old lady wondered
why the car we were in was so big.
"It's a hearse.
We're going
to the funeral,
do you remember?"
"Whose funeral is it?"
"We're going to bury Dad,
your husband."
"My husband?
I was married?
Was he a good man?"

She had not chosen to forget
the life they had spent together.
Her brain had simply switched off those years
as if they had never happened.

Lucky in a way.
What would her life have been
if she had remembered
those seventy-three years
and had nothing to replace them?
Worse still, if she had had to start remembering
all over again?

1.
Into a dull day
you came all unexpected.
My afternoon shone.


2.
Look into my eyes,
see my whole world reflected,
you at the centre.


3.
In your eyes are tears
but your smile overcomes them.
Where is the rainbow?


4.
There was so much more
that we could have said and done,
but we said goodbye.

Even from behind the glass,
you can smell the chemical
that keeps the moths away.
A vast mound of matted sheep’s wool
you would say, except (they assure you)
it is original, all two tons of it,
the human hair that was left
unused at the end.
The rest went for socks
to keep workers’ feet warm.
All grey now, sixty years on, it has aged
as those that owned it never did.
They went naked to the shower room,
clutching the soap
they would never use,
and then to the ovens.
A lorry’s engine drowned the screams,
and the Governor’s wife tended her flowers,
making a garden “like paradise.”

The heat the sun created in the day
persists indoors into the night. I cannot sleep.
The full moon reflecting the sun's rays, modifying its strength,
now shines more coolly but no less clear,
and I, sitting outside in the silence of the night,
can relax in peace.

Then I catch sight of movement in your window.
You have switched on no light, but are illuminated
by the silvery moonglow, entranced, it seems,
by the quietness, by the peace
that has been brought to the garden.
And I in turn, entranced by your stillness,
your magical calm, can only observe
as you hum your secret to the moon.
Alas, the moment is ended far too soon,
but I'll never forget that lovely, beautiful tune.

Two
hundred
ways
in Sanskrit
of saying
r a i n b o w
and among that richness one
that would perfectly describe
the magical light that fleetingly
shone from your face as,
tears welling in your eyes,
you turned to me
and smiled.