On Taking Leave 2 (For W.P.) Poem by Jacqui Thewless

It'll be hard
to leave this
guardian Cwm of childhood;
each mild morning and all through the night,
missing the river's tune
that sang in my ears when I stood
among haven woods
where quiet rain-veils fell
and drifted (filtered through
the tallest Pines or lower Ash
and lesser Birch) to
wrinkled Hazel leaves over berries and buds.


But I'll not lose it.
Though I must find
another bee-lined lane
opening ways beyond these
well-known banks of Creeping Jenny's
yellow stars, Ox-eyed open wide
Daisies, glossy Hart's Tongue ferns
and steeply-leaning Foxglove sentinels,
all that is left behind will not leave me
since youth itself (rooting when seeds fell
in the soil where we moved stones, and weeded and dug}
must bloom in my mind with the home I've loved.