I still walk beside you:

Tall, stooped, a  quintessentially English presence.

Listen to how those flat Fenland vowels swirl into melodies

Melded with the staccato RP of Cambridge. 

So many minor key explorations of sadness;

Pulling at the scabs of loneliness and regret.

Your songs made plangent by the melancholic timbre of your voice.

Your abiding mood was irresolution, your secret strength, regret.

 You never lost your fragility of heart

 My emptiness of soul was filled passingly 

Sharply compassionate, lyrics that lifted songs into poems.

Poems that very often broke my heart. 

Your achingly beautiful music admits again

Poetry's terrifying, and abiding truth.