Blind Snow

blind snow softened the terraces,
you thought, this is the silence of years
and still, you could not speak.

blind snow. so far we had to go
through those pale corridors, in-deep-
not knowing anything, really;

born to meekness; dreaming we knew God.
folding our blank valentines
with such industrial compunction:

ink of moonlight, soul of the white white stone...

and is it winter still or only here
in all the world the blind snow whirled?
and nameless something mourned

the disappearances
that never wrote home.

who were you, then,
when we were herded like clouds
and imagined we were free?
blind snow keeps falling,

falling down on me.
the houses melted I never lived in;
erasures on paper and the light bulbs dimmed

and voices through the air
are lost! and is Light itself orphaned
that they suspend the telegraphic

tapping from cell to cell
so that tears run down
the faces in old paintings?

blurred blurred the words won't come.
you stand in your dark silk
at the funeral of colours;

you weep in your circuit and your weeping's vast:
in a foreign room, at an empty loom,
while the slavish tasks are still-

are still- undone.

mary angela douglas 7 august 2015