winter breath

These first steps, footmarks, were they mine or yours?

In my coat I sit

At the window sill

Wintering with snow

That did not melt

It fell long ago

At night, by stealth

I was where I am

When the snow began.

---Menashe.

 

The book said, watch your breath, count your breath...this song of emptiness and fulness. You said, in your funny voice, "do I bring you up?" and my breath trailed away to some frozen, distant land...

 

I shall imagine that each poem I read is really about you, cast off rememberings. This was the place that was the place. Strange how strange the heart becomes, how much our faces darken with time. You, on the edge of the picture, nearly gone, my hand resting a second on a random page, against the system of loss.

The snow, the white object of our past, the splintered frames, the shards of glass on the wall to keep trespassers out, preparing us for the sharpness of the outside world....this "there" that holds us rapt. The frozen ground, gnarled roots and knotted weeds. Here, where no love is.

You said, in your sad, melancholic voice, "Do I bring you down?"

The ancient sadness falling, like forest green. The heart in its own endless silence kneeling.

Within the dream you said,

Let us kiss then,

I put my mouth close to,

Flow North, flow South..

It is not love you will find.

The narrowing sun

lights her eyeleashes