I Find You by Lizzie Lovejoy

We find you in the places your echo hesitates 
a sound can give you pause to wait 
linger and appreciate 
the shadow you left behind 
for us to find. 

I find you in rocks, looking through the eye 
of a hagstone while listening to the cry 
of gulls on the rooftops and cliffs. 
I see you in the way wood drifts 
up on the sand, like the piece from your honeymoon. I 
see you in glass on the shoreline, strewn 
about and rounded by salt water, collected in palms. I 
find you, not where the water is calm, 
but in the storms, the thrashing of waves. 
I find you when wandering in newly discovered caves 
because all darkness is worthy of being explored. 

I hear you in the silence, in acknowledging its place finding 
there are moments we all need breathing space. I find you in 
strangers who talk using their hands having conversation I can’t 
even halfway understand but I catch a moment, a clip, one 
sentence in many and you’re the laugh without context, but I 
don’t need any. I see you in her dancing, though she is only 
three, and sometimes when she’s singing, I can see a part of 
me. 

I find you in pies, savoury and sweet, 
confusing the two, a tradition you’d repeat, 
one I never experienced, but felt through time I 
find your heart and hold it close to mine. 
There are places you are that I have mourned,
but there are pieces of you I have adorned. I 
wear your sunshine around my throat 
and your hug is in my favourite autumn coat. 

I find you in your words, these women’s words like 
a flock of every kind of North Sea bird your voices 
carry over the brine 
I’ll keep your words and share all of mine 
because if I can find you, you might find me and 
I want to give you the best that I can be I see 
you, I hear you, I hold you inside 
until your memory and your myth collide. 

I find you when I’m walking and a song starts the play, 
because I can’t help moving, it starts with a sway 
but turns into a dance out into the street, 
no longer the subtle tapping of feet, 
I’m spinning and singing the way we always do. 
These are the moments where I find you.