Sanskrit by First Snowfall

J U N E 1 9 9 7

SANSKRIT BY FIRST SNOWFALL

by Brooks Haxton

Hear Brooks Haxton read this poem (in RealAudio):

Also by Brooks Haxton:
From the Greek (1998)
Molybdenum (1995)
The Body of My Brother Osiris Is in the Mustard Seed (1994)

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Under the dust a flake of consciousness,
a word, a condensation frozen on the breath,
is falling fallen windblown whirling:
Krishna on the white flake of the lotus
in the arms of Lakshmi, hands divine
inside each other's shirt. And all around them
wheels of heaven crash into the silent
windows of Bird Library past midnight,
Bird of the Dead Tongues, mine, my logy
snowbird Ba in snow. I should be home.
My daughters my twin girls say Ba for bird
for book for bottle -- Ba: in Egypt,
bird with a human head, the soul.
They wake, and wake their mother. Ba!
They point into the dark. Ba, Ba! they say,
and back to nursing weary in her arms.

Brooks Haxton is the author of Dead Reckoning (1989), and The Sun at Night (1995).