Why Cancer Counselling

Thank you so much to Helen Adams, one of our 2020 WHYoutdoors participants, for sharing her poems with us and allowing us to share them on World Poetry Day 2021. If you'd like to find out more about WHYoutdoors or any of our services, please call 01373 455255 or email info@wehearyou.org.uk

Third of October 2020.
1st session We Hear You.
I saw the Why, and I wondered How?
How did I come to be here?
who do I know here?
who am I here?
and I walked into the woods.
And my memory tumbled to a time when I lost my mum.
Here I am, still in the shop.
Where is she?
how do I get home?
how did I get here?
Is there a map I keep missing? .
And the moss beckons;
I am soft, I can be your mother - come lay your head on me.
And the wolf advances - flexes his muscular form and says - I will eat you.
And the holes reach out - fall into us they call.
And my fear screams within me.
My heart clambering to escape.
Then the warm sun shines upon me.
A path appears from the shadows
An entrance to my exit
An escape from where I went willingly.

A meeting with a friend on a foggy morning. (written after the WHYoutdoors course)
Hello my friend.
I have not seen you for a while,
How goes you?
I seek to gaze across the valley, and there is nothing but fog;
is this the metaphor?
Is this the future?
It’s all I need to know.
I ground.
The here and now are all that are important.
And I turn my gaze to my friend, behind me,
Above me,
who shelters me;
who has held me.
Who I’ve rested against.
My children have played upon you,
Peered out from behind you.
We have a shared history you and I.
I look at the beauty of you.
Really look.
Deeply.
Your branches -
the intricacy of their weaving.
I have never noticed the beautiful red of your bark!
How little I know you,
And yet you have been such a good friend.
I understand
I am safe. I am free.
To laugh.
I LAUGH!
I laugh, I shout and I feel.
I sense and I’m overwhelmed with joy and sadness in equal parts, for without one there cannot be the other.
We are blessed my friend -
You and I together.

Helen Adams

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