What We Agreed to Call "Snow" in Yorùbá

Night falls & snow joins in ceremony.

I search the clearing for danger

only to be met with ache.

Snow is now; there are things that can't be translated.

Don't give up on me

, says the snow.

Again, I try. Snow is a landscape of loneliness.

It returns to Earth if only to be touched a little longer.

What of ègbọ̀n òtútù, meaning "cold weather,"

though it passes through the threshold of language

as "cotton cold," ègbọ̀n not for its color

but how it doesn't fear coming undone.

Snow derives from the Old English

snaw

,

"that which cascades," what makes new language for grace.

Nǹkan tó ń gbọ̀n sílẹ̀ láti ọ̀run, which does its best

to translate to: "something shaking from heaven."

The snow, my hair, a brief marriage. Yìnyín comes close

but means "ice" & snow is a measurement of longing.

I walk to the center & let heaven fall over me.