the absence.The light of afternoon in the grasses,the lull of crickets slowed by time and cold.You saw the world as it was, the fastest
shutter speed, the oldest joke in the book. When he toldme you were gone, dear soul, sailing out beyond reckoning,beyond any anchor-hold—
how the day dimmed. A greatness gone. I could shoutafter you over that blue-black shivering expanseand nothing, not even an echo, would return. About
five years ago, in your sunroom, I had the chanceto ask how you first met. You told meof a hike in the White Mountains, the intense
brittle solidity of the cold. And on one ridge you could seesnowflakes appearing all around you, out of the air, "just popping into existence from the clear air, suddenly..."
Everything you loved about this world, it's still there,only you've moved beyond it. Fog banks standthere past the outer islands. In the sunroom, your chair
is empty, the light comes down. Your handson the tiller, this water underneath the hull, memory.Mais où sont les neiges d'antan?
Ici, ici, ici.
