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First
published in Oxford Magazine, 2007;
In
collection, Landscape with a Hundred Bridges,
2007,
Blinking Eye, ISBN 978-0-9549036-9-5
Father in Snow
In this print by Hokusai
the snow
sits
on the roof like a quiet cat.
Sometime
in the night
it
will slide off the eaves,
a
footfall in the flurry of dreams.
In
the morning,
as
the orange sun rises,
someone
will take a sensible broom of twigs
and
scrape the path clear
all
the way to the misty river.
Snow
is the same the world over —
so
you’d think, but
it
is also other —
other
even than itself, every snowflake
perfectly
individual.
So
here in England
it
is English snow.
You’re
in your boots with the ribbed tops,
and
blue corduroy jacket.
The
house has shoved you out — a puff of surprise
as
you light your cigarette.
And
though snow is a language, starred
with
the small gates, the crystals, the
heart
of difference,
and
though you have come far,
and
will always be strange to me,
here
you are, and here it is,
banked
against the roots of the hedge,
waiting
for the skirl of your shovel.
Dorothy Yamamoto
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