Clean

The wind is clean and playing
as it dances through the trees
speaks in rushes through the leaves.

The day is bright and clean
the sun playing through the
crystal air:  a tiny knuckle
of snow left, the purple mount
is bare.

Gone are the scouring, batting
bursts that bowl a body
over on the sand and beat
the heather beds, held tight
by wiry fingers to the
moorland sods.

My brother's voice was bright
today, bright as his jovial
unbowed heart, still the
grinning child unchanged through
all his years of whims and
unwise choice:  the bright blonde
boy through the grey -
he gifted laughter
as we spoke,
from all those miles away

but we move on, inexorable
to the weather we don't know
the only way is forward
and all we have is green
or yellow, brown
or black, blue, white, red
depending on the colour of
our eyes, and what our
hands do:  we have to
live with what keeps us
awake at night.

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