for Mike

"So long as I don't have to shovel it..." the old Caper used to say, since he favoured rain over snow any day. There are few who had a sweeter disposition than he. He also had a toe where his thumb used to be. One of his hands one day at the mill got trapped underneath a large pile of hot steel. The pain that he must have endured! His left hand was crushed, mangled and melted; tangled and tattered. By a terrible chance, he'd gotten it smelted. In time, and to some degree, it was cured by a specialist physician for a nominal fee. The procedures were new and untested as yet, but the toe-graft was the one good chance that he'd get to have use of the arm in some capacity. All this he later related to me.

"Age before beauty" I'd sometimes joke as I let him enter a doorway before me at work. "Shit before the shovel" was his stock reply. He'd say it without ever missing a beat. He'd not bat an eyelid. That's how we'd kid. But now he's long gone and dead, six feet below any snow he won't shovel. He's fled, but I doubt if he's burning, the devil. No, he's high up and far off and quite out of sight. His body was broken but now he's made of light.