Colours of a year

Dartmoor. Grimspound. The four of us. February mist. Ghosts and fairies and sheep’s wool caught on sedge. Chips in the pub.

Dartmoor again. Lustleigh Cleave with Mum. Trying not to cry. Oil beetles and mining bees. Stories older than mine. A cuckoo. Again. And again.

Home. Where everything’s shifted a bit.

Exmoor. The river Barle. More beetles strewing the path. A crayfish, a dipper and an eel. Small hopes and hemlock lining the banks.

Charmouth, with my brother and mum and the children all together. Another beetle. This time a wing case made of stone, millions of years old. Swimming in warm seas. A small niece, ‘Well done you did it!’ The ice cream shop shut.

The river Bovey. Gentle rain and autumn sun. A dear friend. Picking through leaves and puddles and everything else.

Home. White roots stirring in spring promised earth.

Dartmoor. The four of us. Lucid brilliance of April moss. Oil beetles and mining bees. Stories older than mine. Ghosts and fairies and a rainbow caught in trees. Chips in the pub.

And in the middle, brightest of all, earth from Dad’s grave. Around which all these other days were spinning.

Dad 20/7/1937 - 11/4/2023