Snow
Hongwei Bao
It’s snowing in March.
Feather-like flakes are dancing
in the air. You are complaining
about the cold, the wet, the nuisance.
I am thinking about how small
and infrequently it snows
on this island kissed
by jet streams and threatened
by global warming.
That I saw much heavier
snow in my childhood
in a small Inner Mongolian
town where the Siberian High
was a permanent resident,
where the thick, white blanket
covered the ground for almost half
a year, where children charged
forward, carefree, on sleighs, leaving
smooth, parallel trails in the snow,
where adults chiselled the ice
open and nets and nets of fish
arose from the frozen lakes.
That I left my hometown to study
in Beijing, where in Spring
strong winds threw sands
bitterly onto the face, except
when it was snowing, when the air was
clean and crisp, when the Weiming Lake
was sheltered in snow, surrounded silently
by white pine trees, silver cypresses.
That I lay on a white
sandy beach in Sydney, surrounded
by nude bodies and pure Aussi
happiness, where the blueness
of the sea merged with the azure
of the sky in the dazzlingly
white sunlight. I wondered
what it would be like to lie
on the snow.
That I walked in the snow
for a couple of miles, making
my way through a small forest
in a Berlin suburb, to a heated
old building where I would meet
other migrants, refugees, the Europe’s
other, trying to figure out the difference
between accusatives and datives, trying
to build a new life in a cold climate.
That I arrived in London on a snowy
day and eventually managed to settle
down after all the phone calls, long
queues, missed paperwork, repeated
apologies. You helped me remove
my suitcase from the car boot and opened
the front door guarded
by colourful garden gnomes
smiling in the snow.
That I still miss
the sun and the beach.
That often in my dreams emerge
the small Mongolian town,
parallel trails chasing the sleighs;
the frozen Weiming Lake,
silver contours of the cypresses;
the small forest in Berlin,
zigzagging footprints stretching on;
the multi-coloured garden gnomes
smiling in the snow.
Here in the Midlands
there’s no extreme
weather, no intense
love or hate. Quietly
we grow old, just like
the silent
f
a
l
l
of the
snowflakes
dancing
in the air
and melting
before they
land.
Feather-like flakes are dancing
in the air. You are complaining
about the cold, the wet, the nuisance.
I am thinking about how small
and infrequently it snows
on this island kissed
by jet streams and threatened
by global warming.
That I saw much heavier
snow in my childhood
in a small Inner Mongolian
town where the Siberian High
was a permanent resident,
where the thick, white blanket
covered the ground for almost half
a year, where children charged
forward, carefree, on sleighs, leaving
smooth, parallel trails in the snow,
where adults chiselled the ice
open and nets and nets of fish
arose from the frozen lakes.
That I left my hometown to study
in Beijing, where in Spring
strong winds threw sands
bitterly onto the face, except
when it was snowing, when the air was
clean and crisp, when the Weiming Lake
was sheltered in snow, surrounded silently
by white pine trees, silver cypresses.
That I lay on a white
sandy beach in Sydney, surrounded
by nude bodies and pure Aussi
happiness, where the blueness
of the sea merged with the azure
of the sky in the dazzlingly
white sunlight. I wondered
what it would be like to lie
on the snow.
That I walked in the snow
for a couple of miles, making
my way through a small forest
in a Berlin suburb, to a heated
old building where I would meet
other migrants, refugees, the Europe’s
other, trying to figure out the difference
between accusatives and datives, trying
to build a new life in a cold climate.
That I arrived in London on a snowy
day and eventually managed to settle
down after all the phone calls, long
queues, missed paperwork, repeated
apologies. You helped me remove
my suitcase from the car boot and opened
the front door guarded
by colourful garden gnomes
smiling in the snow.
That I still miss
the sun and the beach.
That often in my dreams emerge
the small Mongolian town,
parallel trails chasing the sleighs;
the frozen Weiming Lake,
silver contours of the cypresses;
the small forest in Berlin,
zigzagging footprints stretching on;
the multi-coloured garden gnomes
smiling in the snow.
Here in the Midlands
there’s no extreme
weather, no intense
love or hate. Quietly
we grow old, just like
the silent
f
a
l
l
of the
snowflakes
dancing
in the air
and melting
before they
land.
Hongwei Bao (he/they) grew up in China and lives in Nottingham, UK. He studied Gender and Cultural Studies at the University of Sydney, Australia, and creative writing at City Lit, London. He uses poetry, short stories and creative nonfiction to explore issues of queer desire, Asian identity, gender politics and transcultural intimacy. His work has appeared in Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, Ponder Review, Positions Politics, Shanghai Literary Review, Voice & Verse, Write On and Words Without Borders.
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