Janette Ayachi

Sonatas of Snow

I stare out at the snow with eyes as dark as omega plums
the wind rolls out clouds the way a woman unravels
her treasured Persian rug on the empty floors
of her new home in a vast city,
a flick of the wrist, a magic trick,
signing space in the dust as clock towers chime in the distance.

The white brackish hills hug the skyline, a blister of air furrows
under woven light, snow falls, hail follows, it tails down
the chimney to tap at porcelain propped up
in the fireplace, drops glaze
the unlit candle in the hearth
where every movement is in minuet, each step repeats shadows.

Only footprints mark existence outside but snow keeps falling
and footsteps are erased, the streets evacuate
as no one wants to be wiped out that easily.
Colonies cluster behind cauldrons
of gun metal light and the infra-red
glow of ice-tipped windows- anything left outside is forgotten.

Shovels erect like abstract crucifixes marking graves
looping at the foot of the streets like musical staves starved
of any song. I take shelter from Highland swept blizzards,
move furniture, burrow behind walls and thumb
shoals of dust away from my stacked books
– the smell of old libraries as discrete as a geisha’s dagger.

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