Bearing in mind that ten minutes is all you need when you’re from the tropics, inspired by my first experience of winter – the different types of snow and finally relating to movie aerial shots of people spinning in it – I wrote this eleven years ago:
On the day the sky stepped out to marry the land, there’d been no warning. No flashes from the bustling clouds, paparazzi to the stars. No invitations carried between the wind’s curl of cold digits to meet where dusk diffuses the whole.
The sun puffed up, then exhaled, oscillating between the earth and the heavens, as was customary. Behind the haze of heckling crows speckling the mountain fringes, it shuffled its rays in a last yellowing of what has been promised the shadows.
On my gaze’s horizon: scaly roof tops of an ocean of houses and their reef-like gardens; the roads rushing between them; bipedal beings from metal jackets infest the mounds; tree husks blackened by a vow of silent retreat. But soon, confetti veils of Gypsophila paniculata from above. From beyond seamless sight, its petals, floating in the tousling air.
A fold in the floorless continuum…
suspended
in
the
slow-
motion
of
silences…
Then, a rain of pellets like rice in a celebration of the public exchange of intentions.
For the moment, spent, the sky stores its dress. Chrystal castles collapse into fanged facades; lassoed, evergreen trees abide their weight; the mountains are mangy; the sidewalk’s glaze cannot be trusted—its throw, a collection of phantom footprints; and the rest, from the pinnacle, in every direction…is buried in salt.
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