From the book, BEFORE A BLUE SKY MOON
by WEYMAN CHAN


Snow Poem


I want to write a poem about snow
and the naming of snow
in the word our Step Mom re-trained us to say
in Chinese-
thloot meaning snow-
as she held a piece of beef jerky out for us
to say each word of our mother tongue

in 1968 we were reclaiming
like daylight savings the tongue that would repatriate
our love for anyone who dared to marry our father
to save his four kids from the foster homes.

Dad and Step Mom talked about Heng Ha, the homeland:
Sah Vun, Thlum Gup, Bahk Sah
jeweled villages on a shepherd's path
to stone-hedged grave markers,
each one in the shape of an inverted omega,
carved into rainy hillsides.

They never saw snow until they came to Canada

if your eyes move with it
the snow will hold still
while the earth meets up with it
never to own or to be owned

Step Mom warned us about heaven, when we were bad.
There's a heaven, she'd tell us. "Yu-ga hin."
She had eyelashes that seemed
the perfect altar of warmth
to die on

snow is the one thing
that holds still while we float free
between lattice and rivulet
snow is the anchor of our moderation

but snow kept her alone in the house
constantly sweeping out the grey air
yelling at us to step back
when we walked in dusted with snowflakes

and years later on the morning
my mother-in-law died
her last eyes looking out
followed that gentle whiteout
it hushed her breathing and I wondered
how anybody could stand open-mouthed
looking upward
hoping to cradle-catch that illusion of falling
into its own vowel-its no,
negation, have-not of heaven
following the s

and if snow could be a poem about the body
when in other seasons a fish
could dream air out of water
or a tree could bend sugar out of light,
then snow would talk about disbelief,
its six-sided dissolution
in the millions
proving that the smallest touch lasts

why her, why this falcon-like fall
from recovery, only to believe with
all the science of your heart that all we have
is this body
this body taken by storms and dart frogs,
excoriations that bend leaves at night
with our children's voices crying for us

this body
caught in the middle distance
where life stops freezing or burning
and begins to know itself.

I skated on the river today
amazed that this distance could be mother to water
and that water could have made me

to remember a word like thloot
on a day like today where the sun spoke to me
like an old friend-

Yes I remember you when you left me yesterday
and I've slept without you in the world
anticipating nothing until now.


Before a Blue Sky Moon
ISBN: 0-9684903-5-2
Price: $14.95
http://frontenachouse.com