Snow’s Counter-Voice, Courting the Plum in Bloom

 

Dust is post-sacrifice.
Snow is pre-appearance.

 

Why is the plum aware
of its own essence?
Because it cares—
and does not depart.

 

And how would I not know?

 

Am I not snow—la neige—
nostos in branching stars,
released and inscribed—

 

nostos that knows
the plum before it blooms,
and knows itself as snow
still folded

 

inside buried buds
before they arrive—
just as return knows itself
before it comes?

 

And when they bloom,
I do not remain. I depart.
No one can be all
and live.

 

To stay
is to burden becoming.

 

But in winter’s
monochrome mold,
I relay the light,

 

and make it manifest—
white
even in the dark,

 

preparing
rebirth—return—
nostos of the eyes

 

not yet painted
with their many sights.

 

For I am the whiteness
where songs begin,

 

and with this tincture
I balance what has been,
silence the errant notes,
and reset the bar

 

so it sounds again
clear and clean—

 

like snow
when it is new.

 

I return purity.
I return silence.

 

And then I go back

 

to the presence
that was here
before arriving.