🍎🍎🍎 <-- because we're well into Autumn now...
Eternity
In memory of Leo, 28th May 1975 to 15th June 2020
He loved the park that Autumn. "All the gold!"
he marvelled, gesturing to beech and oak,
his hands well gloved. By then, he felt the cold,
though in remission. But he liked to joke
about the cancer, chemo, all the drugs
that made him nauseated, tired, or high.
I listened, tried to keep him warm with hugs
while all the waterbirds went sailing by.
His favourites were the grebes. Their fiery crests
aroused a need to stroke my auburn hair,
remembering their dance, their necks and chests
entwining, rising, in the April air
and, later, how we sought to emulate
the dance and tumbled, laughing, into bed
and we were fire and we were pretty great.
"I'll love you for eternity," he said.
Ron Cooper, 'Courtship dance, great-crested grebes, Pittville'