Fresh Snow and Lace
Inara Cedrins
There is a new piece of lace on my window sill
and snow drifting over the branches outside:
just a few meters further, and the goggle-eyed goldfish
that swim in the yin and yang position in the center
could float among the twigs, casting shadow
on the iced pool below, with its bright-range floss
where the lotus used to rise. I tried to step into your world
but it would not hold me. This is the day I learn about the child
who ran gleefully to the end of the hall and straight out
off the balcony: the people below saw him catapult past their window
like a bright bobbin, spinning, the thread unraveled.
A time before knowing. What purchase can I have
in the real world, the broom of branches interlaced
like the crackle glaze on celadon? I dreamed of trying to return
money to the crone with the basket of pomegranates, saying,
I do not want this fruit: but sight only one old woman
who sells lilies, and tells me, flowers must bloom in their prime time
or not at all, and that she likes white, fragrant, simple blossoms.
My hand wavers in giving, in receiving, I had no method
as my son had, who would eat his marzipan torte
in an order like that of writing
a Chinese character: first the lines of filling,
then the chocolate shell. Soon gone, the snow, the sweetness:
it was good, there is nothing I regret. |
