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 …
Paula Bohince‘s new book, Swallows and Waves, is a collection of 60 poems inspired by Japanese artwork from the Edo period (1603-1868).
“Mountain and the River on the Kiso Road” is re-printed with permission from Sarabande Books.