February

Yesterday

I dreamed I was the wind—

shrill, harsh, shrieking around the corner of the house

scooping snow and flinging it

amongst the moaning trees,

and as in the way of dreams,

I dreamt I was the snow,

a flurry of helpless flakes

swirling, flying madly in three directions at once—

up, down, sideways, veiling the landscape in torn lace.

In the midst of snow and wind

I was a sparrow clinging to a bending forsythia branch,

feathers fluffed against the cold,

guarding my small, valiant heart

against February’s bared teeth.

And I became what hides behind the wind,

behind the snow, beyond the cold,

that which remains nameless in its vastness

its otherness, its unknowable self

except in dreams. That which writes the world

in symbols we struggle to interpret.