Where are you John?

Maybe some of you, a small part of you, is here in your grave.

But most of you is with me, in my heart.

And in my head, in my memories.

Some of you is in your family and friends, in their memories of you, and in their love for you.

Some of you is in your things, and in your home – surely some essence of you lingers there?

Maybe you are in heaven with the angels, like my mother says.

I will try to believe that.

Maybe you will wander around the graveyard as a spirit, a ghost.

I hope not, better you were resting in peace, as they say.

I don’t mind thinking of little parts of you in the birds that live there.

In the crows and woodpeckers and pigeons and blackbirds and sparrows.

And in the noisy green parrots.  Maybe they have people’s spirits residing in them.

Maybe you have been reincarnated and are screaming through the mouth of a newborn baby.

Maybe you are a fish in the depths of the ocean.

Maybe you are some alien creature on another planet.

Certainly, since you are still alive in the past, you are scattered through time, in all the places you’ve ever been.

You are sitting on a bench in St Moritz.

A part of you is still in that mountain cafe in Austria, enjoying Bratwurst.

A big bit of you is on the Isle of Wight, in all the various places you knew in Cowes.

You are in our shelter on the seafront.

You are on the steam trains, a little excited boy, travelling around.

You are walking on the hills.  You are looking at the boats out to sea.

You are in lots of places, dear John.

But not really in that cold earth.

Much more in my warm heart.