Your Voice in the Forest

We’ve walked
together
for four decades
in the forest,
a world
I never
would have known
so deeply
without you.
This is where
you come alive
because this is where
you are most at home.
And always,
your voice
narrating
the trees,
the bird calls,
the wildflowers,
the moss
and fungi,
stopping now
and now again
to behold a new one,
so that when I walk alone
through these wild places
still I hear your voice
on the wind
explaining everything.

By Maria Brady-Smith