Snow Approaching on the Hudson

Passenger ferries emerge from the mist
      river and sky, seamless, as one –
            watered ink on silk

then disappear again, crossing back over
      to the other shore, the World of Forms –
            as-if-there-were, as-if-there-were-not

The buildings on the far shore ghostly
      afloat, cinched by cloud about their waists –
            rendered in the boneless manner

Cloud need not resemble water
      water need not resemble cloud –
            breath on glass

The giant HD plasma screen atop Chelsea Piers
      flashing red and green –
            stamped seal in a Sesshu broken ink scroll

A tug pushes the garbage scow, left to right, toward the sea
      passing in and out of the Void –
            vaporising grey, temporal to timeless

Clouds wait, brooding for snow
      and hang heavily over the earth –
            Ch’ien Wei-Yen

Bustle of traffic in the sky, here, as well, on the shore below
      obliterated –
            empty silk

The wind invisible
      spume blown horizontal in the ferry’s wake –
            wind atmosphere, river silk

Heat

The blue-bellied fence lizards have died back
into stone or the walls they attach themselves to,
drinking in mineral and sun, proliferating
almost before one’s eyes,
a slow-motion saurian mitosis
threatening to blanket every surface,
a reticulated vine with eyes and split tongues.

Gone, overnight it would seem,
like the sun at day’s end below the horizon
but not returning: a conjury, the Lord
retracting his edict of fiery serpents upon the Israelites –
disappeared into a compost of shadow.

The summer’s heat retreats slowly here in the valley,
a dusting of snow already on the mountain summits.
Tirelessly, the roots of camphor and live oak
probe in the loam for moisture –
roof tiles, brass doorknobs, hot as griddles,
silence in the village.

Send Letters To:

The Editor
London Review of Books,
28 Little Russell Street
London, WC1A 2HN

letters@lrb.co.uk

Please include name, address, and a telephone number.

Read anywhere with the London Review of Books app, available now from the App Store for Apple devices, Google Play for Android devices and Amazon for your Kindle Fire.

Sign up to our newsletter

For highlights from the latest issue, our archive and the blog, as well as news, events and exclusive promotions.

Newsletter Preferences