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On These Wintry Days
by Ambika Talwar

Winter days my love—what are these winter days
whose silvery haze weaves in and out of rivers,
sky is fine particles of paper where blackbirds fly…

Where coot tern teals wallow in concentric circles
centers always becalm these wintry days—and halos
rising in shafts of light filter into water's dreamscape

Floes of tides, small music stir lands in you forgotten.
Do you remember how you learned to walk wishing
you'd walk on water like tall ones in old pictures?

Do you remember smell of tea rising between rooms,
the way light follows its nose aromas of wintry joys?
And in skins of water you see your mirrored faces?

On such winter days everything is hushed in stillness;
moments without seams become fingers that cannot grasp
anything at all

Those are days when we realize what it is to be a blackbird
that lands on surfaces fragrant with reflections…
What it is to smell tea you wish to share with a beloved.
What it is to touch cracks of skins where tears have rolled.

So much tenderness in silver haze of future memories.
Winter days, my love! Embers in your eyes
                                                make wintry days glow.
 

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