Our Secret Valley Poem by Twilight Whispers

Yesterday I was sat behind the language huts
thinking that you didn't seem real anymore.
It seemed too long ago;
too long since I'd seen you. I
can still remember the crevices and contours of
your face and I can remember the
soft velvets of your voice as they swam in
gentle waves through the air before
dancing in waltzes into my ears.
I will never forget the memories.
Though, as I sat there with the sun
beating down on my aching bones,
most of all, you felt so very,
very far away.

And it doesn't change things that
I know where you are.
It helps, like the idea of lights
at the end of the road: of a welcoming,
cosy house and a warm bed at the end
of a long journey home from far
away adventures that linger like a
dream in your tired mind.

It has mountains where the
sun rises in the morning -
it pulls itself up on a rope of silvery-blue
and skims the backs of the mountains
and hills of the valley where you live.

The valley is a pretty valley,
e the Salinas Valley in California;
the land is dry in summer
and wet in winter.
When you're in summer you
wait for the cold rain of November;
when it's winter you long for the warm,
hot sun on your shoulders which
no longer bear the weight of
other peoples' quandaries which you
happily took upon yourself so that
they may have lived with a cloud that
didn't shower down so
any worries upon them.

You live happily,
amongst friends
who see you every day and
who have been through the
same things you have.
They waved goodbye to their old life -
in a way, and entered the
shores of this new life,
here in the valley.

You like it here.
You don't miss your old life,
although sometimes you sit under the
willow trees at the foots of the hills
and remember those you once loved.
You still love them,
of course,
but you don't feel the
pain
of the loss of this love
because the
love
wasn't ever
lost.

Every time the sun shines
your heart beats faster -
because I know it's still beating
in it's own, new, reformed way,
in this place by the valley.
You feel warmer because
you remember how we loved you,
and how you loved all of us.

When the moon takes patrol
in the midnight sky you
smile
because it reminds you of
Paul and how he was your moon.
When the stars shine you cry a little
cry
of nostagia as you remember your
daughters; your son; your grandchildren.

And the
flowers -
who could forget the flowers?
The flowers smile up at you,
each one a personal
reminder of every
friend
you'd ever had.

You can't forget us,
because in that secret place where
nobody knows -
in the valley where you are,
we are all around you.

And in the real world,
where we carry on living best we can,
you are all around us:
in the wind; the trees;
the grass...the churches;
the castles; the beaches and coves;
the clouds, the sky and the rain.

You are everywhere. I don't feel any
pain.
I love you,
and nothing would ever stop me
loving you.

And if in a few years time
I don't miss you quite so bad,
I'll know that -
whilst you're far away -
you're happy,

and I'm not sad.






April 21st 2010.
For Jenny.