Birthday wishes

Today would have been your fifty-fourth birthday but the first one of your birthdays that I would have spent with you. I wonder what we would have done? It's a beautiful day so we would have been outdoors, maybe even a trip to the seaside. Instead, later on today, I will pick your mum up and we'll go looking for a spot to put a bench in your memory.

On my birthday in February, we woke up in each other's arms in a cottage near Brimham Rocks. You gave me wrapped presents, bought from shops. Only someone who knew you well would understand the significance. Usually your presents came from the e-bay stock in the storage unit of your house. But I had standards and you were rising to the challenge. One of the things you gave me was a limited edition print called Stardust. You said it reminded you of the journey of our love. Or something like that. How I wish I was paying more attention, but we had to pack up and drive home ready to fetch the children and to host my pancake party.

We spent the day together although you were in the background again, pretending we were just friends for the sake of my children. You coped admirably with the onslaught of mothers and young children, eventually seeking refuge in the making of pancakes. It was ok. We'd just had three beautiful days together. It was lovely just to see you there in the throng of people celebrating my special day.

I wanted to buy you something for your birthday today, so I named a star after you. Cheesy, maybe, but it seems fitting. You were a cosmic kind of guy. I paid for an extra bright one (what a marketing ploy!) because how could I not? And paid for it to be in Ursa Major because where else could it be?

And I wrote a poem for you, because there would definitely have been a birthday poem. 'Send me a poem, Beverley Writer,' you would have said. And here it is. I hope you can read it from up there.

Stardust

Today, no cake,

just this ache

and space.

I write 54 words

instead of lighting candles:

53 for each birthday missed,

one for this day

missing you.

Blacksmith Paul is

in the Great Bear now

and stardust rains like

love below.

With memories held tight,

particles of light:

we form a constellation

of you.