for Alice*

You’ve caught the colour
I don’t care how you did it
Tea the builders’ kind
(not my affected blend)
Tea and rust

It’s the colour of that sand
we stood upon
the first evening there
amongst the midges
when you paddled
like a child in the gentle sea
starfish at your feet

Now they are pictures
on the wall
finely framed
and in these little
books you make

This poem is trying to say
I’d buy them all if I could
but I have to let them go

Yesterday I discovered
how your miniature inscapes
capture a time and place
so precious to me
I had to hide my tears
and leave the room

You see I knew
those bird-like marks
(you’d sewn into paper
with your quiet hand)
were really our footsteps
seen from a distance
a measured dance
in the red sand.