For Siân

For Siân

My beautiful Welsh Wiccan
Where did you go?
The birds near return after winter, the daffs
   already push through snow.
Will you be back to greet them
   – and the newborns – ‘blessed be’?
And the white bells circling the willow,
ringing the changes for our tree?
Easter blooms won’t wait for your return –
and who else, apparently fluent in Cat
   as well as Chinese,
will encourage ballooning mothers,
woodshed-warm with kittens, to trust
  and be at ease?

Vanished as if taken by the wind – while I
   sat in your lee –
I still feel your shelter now as if your soul
   tarries in me.
Perhaps for one last spring.
For how else do I still hear you name each flower?
And your voice still whisper each bird type
   at the table?
Your ‘shush!’ – to hear their varied songs,
   and calls to view the moon,
framed through the willow against the curtain of stars
   you now reveal as your hiding place.
Where perhaps you’ll wait.
Until – too wilted to harbour two souls –
I’ll meet you there to guide me,
beyond the diamond studded drapes.

Miles Glen


This ‘guest poem’ is very personal and from the heart. It was written by Miles, our lovely daughter Siân’s partner for over thirty years, to be read at her memorial service after she left us so suddenly and shockingly a year ago today.

Just a little explanation:

Siân loved all nature and from an early age would wander with us identifying trees, flowers, grasses, birds and animals, always being at one with nature and remembering names and details with her phenomenal memory. Siân and Miles’ home had a large weeping willow tree in the front garden, surrounded by clumps of bluebells and white harebells in the springtime. She loved to listen to the birds sing, and see them nest in the tree, and to identify them by sight or sound. Their bedroom window with old-fashioned, small squared-glass panes looked out to the tracery of the tree with the moon showing through at night. 



Siân and Miles’ home was always a haven for the local stray cats. The ‘meow’ obviously spread through the neighbourgood and pregnant cats homed in to give birth on the doorstep or in the house if the door was open. At one stage they were caring for twenty-five cats. (Before leaving Taiwan to go to university, Siân had become fluent in Mandarin Chinese and Miles always said that Siân spoke Chinese and Cat).

Siân’s heart was generous and her love was immense. Her loss is with us all every hour of every day. Thank you for the poem, Miles, for the happiness you and Siân shared with us, and for the care you gave her during her illness.

Love you always, Siân Eleri x