Simón Ibarra


from SONNETS IN SNOW

SONNET IN SNOW I

Slight fatigue in the morning fire.
Somewhere far off on the waters
a ghost eye moves, all is silence
but a memory of happy days, to
question the world & those who
are not kind. You sleep enough,
but some say it is far too much.
Motion & snow in the winds we
observe, as a rustle in the pines
beckons. You must look to the future
for your happiness. O the wood
temples the futility of cool days.
& yet, there is a strand of light
you take into your hands, awake.



SONNET IN SNOW III

It was like snow that fell from your
brow in the evening light. Or a
storm that swooped through the
city of cats. Snow on the steps
that gathers with the turning tide.
Monuments of sadness where
Pessoa stands. There is a dream
of ash that floats past the cliffs,
calling to a distant shore in the
void of space. I start anew in a
surge of waves that crash, by a
town square that exists only in
this gensou 幻想. This cataclysm
of grapes & mazes of wild corn.



SONNET IN SNOW IV

Freedom of snowdrifts, summer
suns. Dance of color & painted
sunsets. I hold a rose as the air
breathes. Effortless, in ecstasy.
Hokkaido cool in the listless hills
I climb to where the graves are
dusted with snow. O dream of
color, a blast in the Japanese countryside.
I call to the goddess of the grain
rimmed with salt, a few words
spoken between friends. & in
the end it was a red road that
led us to far Hakodate, where
girls drink gyūnyū & are pristine.




SONNET IN SNOW V

A dusting of white powder sparkles
in the air. It is mid-summer
when the girls barely wear
anything, in the sun, by the
old wooden shrine.
Some pink semblance, some
remnant of a cherry tree in
the night crazed by the red
hair of a stepsister. Time unending
skims the fringe of cognizance
until it stops. Ripe plum &
raisin, prunes, & a recollec-
tion of the lost Zion. A girl
goddess summons & I come.




SONNET IN SNOW VIII

A day lazing, I sit & watch the
snowfall through my window.
A river cuts through my night
& in the distance, a paloma
glides. Slow drift, the snow
majestic as an egret perched upon
a broken bough. Nowhere
to be, but here in a cavern
of histories. I fall from myself
into another self. This life in
limbo & my free will, I make
a decision as snow dusts my
brow. It is Sunday. My love
was a presence in the sun a
bright goddess, citrus & rain.



SONNET IN SNOW IX

Majesty of mornings, the gold
you pull from is. I see oat
fields float in a pool of your re-
collection. We who make our
own lives, as neko 猫 stretch
in the sunlight. Snow falls on
a Japanese bridge & there’s a
dichotomy in our days, the tension
of chaos & serenity. So, we
find a seat at a Japanese inn.
Our waitress is kind, the win-
dows open for the summer.
Who can say where a cloud
will take us? I finish my tea.



SONNET IN SNOW XI

My goddess is a cherry tree
who drifts before the moon.
She is the white of an apple
that falls from a girl’s hand.
Vacant, a sun travels the
night sky a probe that vanishes
in the rain. My goddess is a
Japanese rose who glows in
the primordial mist. I listen
but the moon swirls out of
existence. It is a slow dive,
until it ends, then we say it all went
by so fast. As if in a summ-
er dream I wake. It snows.



SONNET IN SNOW XIII

There is a draught that runs through
the hallway from an open door.
An open door, in the far corner
of the city, where the people rush
to their destinations. O there is
snow in a boy’s heart who stands
alone in summer distances. Sun
in the surf sinks a coin plummets
to a sea floor where it glimmers.
But where is the empathy in our mod-
ern times? Where is the song of
songs that drifts just outside our
reach? There is a wind that runs
though the city from an open door.



SONNET IN SNOW XV

Distant glitter, a dusting of memory.
Time’s capsule is in the lake. When
the night opens its flower & sun floats
a rose in the clouds, a dusty rose.
Perhaps fatigue is a kind of discipline
in the day that falls, with snow in the
distance. Dream, & embers, a bluish
light that hums. O my sister so lost,
my sister so close. Who is the figure
who stands in the mist, on the high
mountain overlooking Gunma Onsen?
It is time, I swim in constellations so
that I may know myself, I breathe &
the evening rose ignites in my hand.



SONNET IN SNOW XIX

It was the end of an era. Demons
hung in a sky littered with cloud.
A few coins, a prism. Is this what
we keep from the past? O ennui
of afternoons in halls we will not
revisit, I rehearsed my lines over
& over. I sought a silence at the
end of an era. An orange candle
in the snow that fell outside my
window, my window that peers
into another life. I sought a silence
& kept a hope. The snow vacant
as the lights green in the city, as
a train slipped through darkness.




Simón Ibarra is a writer who dreams of the summers in Ecuador, of mango trees & sad Spanish guitar. He has an affinity with the French & Spanish surrealists, & his work has been described by Michael Mann as the “inner soft surreal.” He dreams of Kimchee, & the crystalline waves of Sado-ga-Shima. Sometimes an outcast, sometimes a citizen who lives with all the world. His wanderlust has led him to the remote corners of the world, but he always has home in his heart. You may see him in the café reading Jean Paul Sartre, or daydreaming of beautiful women.
 
 
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