A book of snow

I am a book of snow,

a spacious hand, an open meadow

a circle that waits,

I belong to the earth and its winter

- Pablo Neruda, Winter Garden

I wanted this to be a love poem,

stanzas which began: my dearest love.

I wanted words like bookends

to embrace the library between us,

iambic loops to fill white spaces on the page.

I could not predict the approaching shadow,

pain which burned our words to ash,

a world transformed to endless winter.

Now, undone by things I did not know,

I am a book of snow.

It took away a way to grieve,

tested the limits of compassion,

forgiveness which might never come.

This glacial landscape I live within

has no gradation of rescued light

to read me by – no open portico

to guide me to my former self.

The line drawn is so indelible

there might never be an ample window,

a spacious hand, an open meadow

where I might find a meeting ground

between what is now and what is gone.

The world has changed – yes, utterly,

and I am its co-joined inhabitant

of frozen words, unending ice,

of memories for which no opiates

exist to free the heart, if not the soul.

My tenure here is undefined.

I am everything that hibernates,

a circle that waits.

Cold has altered my DNA,

rediscovered the old reptilian brake

which slows the heart,

invaded my bones, besieged my brain,

encrusted memory with a colder code,

allowed enduring frost to enter,

to glaciate heart’s febrile pace.

Everything moves now in polar time:

I mime a life of white on whiter.

I belong to the earth and its winter.