Stanzas: Monthly Chapbooks November 2014: Remembrance | Page 21

Calluna Vulgaris
Jared Nadin

T

he setting sun against the heavens cast a harsh yellow
against the horizon and the clouds, impending rain, loomed
overhead. However, the rain always held off on this annual trek.
Never so much as a drop fell from those grim shadows. Stark and
grey in the summer twilight, those clouds were a nephelomancer’s
dream; I’ve always found clouds to be quite portentous myself.
Every year, on August 2nd, I went on this hike. My own little
pilgrimage to her. There was a humid breeze this time, blowing
up from the foothills behind me. Its warmth and gentle fortitude
egged me on, coaxed me forward and with a little smirk I fell
to. Just a ways up the dirt path, worn smooth by the boots of
countless hill-walkers, I caught a flash of lilac on green. I pushed
on, determined, and soon found myself surrounded by the
colours. That pale purple flower on coarse green stalks. These
flowers, the reason I made this pilgrimage, Calluna Vulgaris:
Common Heather.
‘Quite poignant,’ I spoke aloud, ‘that you waited until the
Heather bloomed before leaving us.’
August 2nd marks the anniversary of the passing of my
mother, Heather. So every year, I go up through the hills to where
the Calluna blooms and pause for a while to think. This year was
no different. Except for the whisper on the breeze, and that one
pink cloud in the mess of grey cumulus, and the phantom hand
caressing my shoulder.
‘You’re back again I see.’ The voice came from nowhere and
everywhere all at once. A voice I hadn’t heard in years but knew
in an instant.
‘Hello Mum.’ I always knew she was with me after she passed,
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