dVerse Poetics – Open Link Night 150- 俳文 初雪

Today is Open Link Night at dVerse Poetics and it is #150!!!!!  We do not submit to a prompt but rather, submit a poem of our choice.  I have done a haibun – 俳文 – for first snow – 初雪   Please come join us.  Submit your own poetry and read the offerings of very differently talented writers.
http://dversepoets.com/2015/06/04/open-link-150 

初雪 Hatsuyuki
Deep winter and total blackness of the night. The stillness of the night awakens me as if it had been a deafening clap of thunder.

I lie under the quilt, warm and cozy but….something in the atmosphere beckons. I change into jeans and heavy sweater, socks and shoes and open the front door. Since going to bed, it has begun to snow.

Ignoring the cold, I step out onto our front porch. Miraculous transformation! Smooth glowing white covering the yard. Against the blacker than the black night trees, silvery white snow has clumped into vees of little branches – night blooming winter magnolias they seem to be.

I carefully go down the steps and into the yard, turning slowly to see all around. The air is cold and sweet with the perfume of snow and it is so silent…so very silent I can hear the snow falling – a slight hissing sound as tiny flakes strike against each other, slough off from each other, group together and fall.straight.down.

I look up at the sky and can see the snow clouds against the black of the sky. I lift my face – bit of instant fire touching my cheeks, lips, eyelids….I hold out my hands.
It is the first snow of the season:  初雪 Hatsuyuki

midnight: snow flowers
spiral down and quickly die
on my outstretched hand.

I walk to the trees at the verge of the woods. I can see against the rough black bark where bits of snow have settled into the crevices of the bark – like exotic plants on the steep side of the cliff. I touch the snow with my lips – soft cold against rough and then melting. I bow my head against the tree – I murmur 侘寂 wabi-sabi

The stillness, the snow, the silence. I am no longer here but there – years past on the viewing platform at Ryoanji. On the wall sit hundreds of suzume – sparrows. Like me, they are watching the rocks in the 枯山水, karesansui. Feathers fluffed against the cold, tiny bright eyes seeing all. I watch the rocks, silent, down jacket pulled close against the cold. The air becomes sweet and before the suzume begin to flutter, I know…snow. I feel them on my face before I see the flakes and soon, they stick to the gravel, to the moss around the base of the rocks. The birds flutter off to more sheltered spaces but a few stay for the crumbs the humans leave behind.

Ryoanji and hatsuyuki. I stay until the moss is white and the suzume have all left. Straight down and fast, the snow falls. I stand and bow the long, deep bow of deepest respect. As I leave, it comes together for me – impermance, the beauty of imperfection, the deep sadness at the passing of things – the snow that melts, the birds that fly away…and the rocks that stay behind.

Snow falls. White *sho-ru.
Silence drifts to cover rocks.
Peaceful dragon sleeps.

*shawl