Golan Haji

The spider’s house
            In the right angle of the northern window
            Has not been touched by the wind –
                        A black house imprinted on your window like traces
                                   Of a seal on the stamp of a letter
                                               Returned unopened to the sender –
You noticed it when you cleansed your eyeglasses of fingerprints & the dust of days
            With a piece of your grandmother’s headscarf,
                        And pulled back a curtain of branches and leaves :
                                   Your narrow road still is muddy.

You don’t savour the cold.
Were it not for these days, you said,
            My life that’s been confused by spring
                        Would be a cloud that rained only on me 
                                   And changed the colours of that hill :
                                   From pistachio-green fluttering above my grandfather’s grave
                                               To the sky-blue of my daughter’s eyes.