Poetry: Cold Window

Ethan Robinson

“Cold Window”

Persimmons remain on the tree outside my window, caved in like collapsed faces of jack o’ lanterns. They will not to be harvested or eaten but left on naked branches, dead leftovers of the commonplace. They are found by every house and every road.

I sit in the kotatsu each afternoon winnowing time in fading light, counting moments, what was left on the branch or in the sky where two hawks dash and intersect, their wings wide, unseen and forgotten if I hadn’t looked.

Little boy spins the beigoma top wrapping string and tossing it, shoving laminate paper underneath spinning and hopping it onto my hand where it spins for a few more revolutions, and then falls. Another teacher wraps the string and throws the top, it slams into the wall and the little boy laughs.

Children beg for me to raise my hand for them to jump and touch, higher and higher than the last, until I can’t anymore. The game is always asked for, each day the space between our hands is filled and taken away. When will the game lose its simple wonder– the boy forgets to toss the top, and children too tall to jump, the hawks outside my window fly over the highway, and the last persimmon remains.

Brooke’s Snow Corner: Carving Out a Piece of Paradise

*All photos courtesy of Brooke