Writing While Grieving 15: The Happy Highways Where I Went

And Cannot Come Again

[Previously]

Into my heart an air that kills

From yon far country blows:

What are those blue remembered hills,

What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content,

I see it shining plain,

The happy highways where I went

And cannot come again.

—A Shropshire Lad, XL, by A.E. Housman

On Sunday, after putting things off for far too long, finally, I took to the bay, gliding over choppy surf toward Billingsgate. Just off the treasured town where we met, where we spent our early days and newlywed summer, in the kind of weather that without fail always drew you back to the shore, I returned you to your beloved ocean, then tossed pink petals from your rose bush upon the waves.

You left no wishes. Later, you said. Later. Eventually, I got the message. Such things don’t matter. That we were still together was all that counted.

Notes

Sound & Sense: An Open Thread