Tag Archives: Loss

Let’s Walk The Bridge

14 Sunday Dec 2025

Posted by in Lyrics, Marians on the Mawddach, poems of place, Poetry, Songs

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(And think of some who’ve crossed)

Poems of Place: The Barmouth Viaduct

 First night in Hall with first night fear

You calmed the room and charmed all here

And later still when midnight chimed,

With notes compared our friendship primed.

            Let’s walk the ridge

            Let’s cross the bridge

            Let’s walk that bridge 

Together

It seems so long since we first met

But not as long as mountains yet

So many things we seemed to share

Both pilgrims with a friendship rare

            Let’s walk the ridge.

            Let’s cross the bridge

            Let’s walk that bridge 

Together

Somewhere beyond that darkened crest

Your stage is now where Quakers rest 

And sometimes lit by orange moons

We’ll speak your rhymes and sing your tunes

Let’s walk the ridge

            Let’s cross the bridge

            Let’s walk that bridge 

Together

That night with Thom and Gill and me,

The wind was strong sandblasting sea.

With ashes then we’d come to throw

You back to where the flowers grow

Let’s walk the ridge

            Let’s cross the bridge

            Let’s walk that bridge 

Forever.

Waiting for you…..

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Waiting For You

1

Now that your face is a shadow

Now that your words are thin air,

I think of us at this window 

And think that you’re still there.

I’ll watch for you in the sunset,

I’ll look for you in the mist,

I’ll scan the wide horizons

Till I see the face I once kissed

             

                  Refrain:

                  Waiting for you….

2

Why did you leave while I was sleeping?

Why did you slip off in the night?

Why not wait till next summer 

When you’d be well enough to fight?

I’ll wait for you at sunrise,

I’ll wait for you in the rain,

I’ll walk through darkened landscapes

Still feeling all your pain

                 

                  Refrain

                  Waiting for you….

A Final Chorus:

I’ll wait for you at sunrise,

I’ll wait for you in the rain,

I’ll walk through darkened landscapes

Still feeling all your pain

                

                  Final Refrain

                  Waiting for you….

Cannes, October 2025

An Elegy in Photographs

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1.

We went outside

in the 

sun.

Your banter had

 me on the 

 run.

As you shot 

I quite forgot

all the best

rules

to look cool.

2.

I caught your

face on my

screen –

A face in 

a place we’ve

been.

But your look

all focus 

took

with thoughts of

what might have 

been.

3

I read your

news in my

feed.

Such news you

don’t choose to

read.

Battles lost

and boundaries 

crossed.

It seems death

breeds rhymes and 

dreams.

Poems of Place: At Shotover

10 Monday Jul 2017

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Inspired by the Fantasia On A Theme by Thomas Tallis: Ralph Vaughan Williams

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Sunlight scouts the forest’s weak points

And glints through dark birch parapets

Across the late morning,

This late Easter morning.

We came looking for hope,

To pause our dissertation on sadness and despair

For those we have lost;

To smell the Spring, all sweet and fecund;

To see the evidence of resurrection.

In the clearing, a process and a place today,

We hear that chord: strident, promising

Flattened and incomplete,

Then, from somewhere deep within the earth

The baseline heartbeat canon,

Which pulses strong again as if from nothing,

And shows we can indeed rise up from beds of death.

Then I see the bluebells, boisterous, on the march,

In rampant progress across the forest floor.

Thus re-connected to my optimistic self, I smile,

Past, present, future are in communion once more.

 

Easter Sunday, 2017

Poems of Place: Lunch with Tory

15 Wednesday Mar 2017

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abbaye-senanque2

We said it would be the Luberon,

Perhaps mid-September

When the crowds had left? Or mostly.

We’d find a table with a view:

Oppède Le Vieux, perhaps? Or better at Sénanque

In the hollow, amongst the purple

We’d drink Domaine Ott – barely pink, well chilled

But elegant like you

We’d banter with black olives

Or the tapenades with fig you liked

Then the smell of roast chicken would

Demand the group’s attention

And with it, we’d bring out salad leaves,

And beef tomatoes, the primed burrata.

After, some would contemplate the madelaines

And lavender honey ice creams lying in wait.

But then comforted and comfortable,

We’d pause and think of you –

And feel once more the warmth you brought.

Poems of Place: Promenade des Anglais

03 Tuesday Jan 2017

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(Elégie en bleu)

 

You always wore a smile

And welcomed us with warmth,

You were always best outdoors

So genial alfresco.

You loved the noise and buzz

You lived for food and friends

You were my Empire of Blue,

This elegy’s for you.

 

It took one summer’s night

To wipe away your warmth

Bring silence to your mood

And shadows to your shine

When Death crashed into you

Devastating

My Empire of Blue.

This elegy’s for you

 

For now those chaises are empty

The vélo racks are full,

The promenade is silent

Yet the sky is azure blue;

 And the sun breaks through our darkness,

As waves kiss the shore

Galettes forever treasured

As music sounds once more.

 

You’ll always be our zest,

Our carnival of joy,

The Nissa of pizzazz,

The goodness that adds life.

You’ll always be our star,

The magnet of our dreams,

The Côte within our hearts

Our Empire of Blue,

This elegy’s for you.

 

2016

 

 

For Ceders

26 Thursday Jun 2014

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If kind thoughts were currency, you would indeed be rich, old friend,

But all that tax would piss you off big time, we both know.

If saucy, earthy thoughts were subject to capital gains, you would be clobbered,

But you wouldn’t care: you would pay and willingly.

The ordinary, instinctive pleasures of life were more than sufficient for your big heart;

The thanks and smiles of friends; the gossip and the comedy of people getting up themselves.

 

But, stay friend, before you go, did I tell you what you meant to me?

That rarest gem of a loving father, a devoted mate and faithful friend who could drive surprisingly fast when the pressure was on and the flight was closing,

A one man charity service with an ever full Passat of needy people or stuff for needy people,

A proper gentleman in his posh overcoat against the cold on late night pick- ups,

A brilliant raconteur with a wicked turn of phrase and an eye for the humanity’s funny side,

That sympathetic attitude which made your famous undercover work and promotion a little tricky,

The world’s best dog walker and putter- up of shelves for the hopelessly inept like me.

 

Dearest Ceders, you would hate all this fuss, but this is one party you can’t escape, I’m afraid,

Today you are our shining, brilliant Celtic star, and we your loving support cast are basking in your light.

Just this once, my friend, you must take your bow…………………..