Lorna Crozier

Sand from the Gobi Desert

Sand from the Gobi Desert blows across Saskatchewan,
becomes the irritation in an eye. So say the scientists who
separate the smallest pollen from its wings of grit,
identify the origin and name. You have to wonder where
the dust from these fields ends up: Zimbabwe, Fiji,
on the row of shoes outside a mosque in Istanbul,
on the green rise of a belly in the Jade Museum in Angkor Wat?
And what of our breath, grey hair freed from a comb, the torn
threads of shadows?
Just now the salt from a woman's tears settles finely its invisible kiss
on my upper lip. She's been crying in Paris on the street that means
Middle of the Day though it's night there, and she doesn't want
the day to come.
Would it comfort her to know another, halfway round the world,
can taste her grief?
Another would send her, if she could, the rare flakes of snow
falling here before the sunrise, snow that barely fleeces the brown
back of what's
too dry to be a field of wheat, and winter's almost passed. Snow
on her lashes.
What of apple blossoms, my father's ashes, small scraps of sadness
that slip out of reach? Is it comforting to know the wind
never travels empty? A sparrow in the Alhambra's arabesques
rides the laughter spilling from our kitchen, the smell of garlic
makes the dust delicious where and when it falls.

Lorna Crozier


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