Mountain and River on the Kiso Road

The weasel in its Winter fur lies down

to dream. The silent film

freezes. Snow shuddering from shoulders,

the animal looks asleep.

Now landscape is deadened,

unblemished by fantasy.

Ice in the blue insistence

has no emotion. How glorious

its absence, the blankness of snowflakes

when they hit, unheard hiss of is, is, is…




From Swallows and Waves (Sarabande Books, 2016). Reprinted with the permission of the author.