Winter visitations

Two days ago, I returned to Kyoto from New Zealand. Suddenly, the sultry southern-hemispheric days have been replaced with an insidious chill that I only notice when I set out on my bike to replenish my larder, and decide it is too late to return for a pair of gloves.

Someone has been using my house while I’ve been away, and although they have made an effort to remove the traces of their presence, my house as it was five weeks ago remains like a snapshot in my head, and I notice with a start where the lamp has been unplugged, the sofa moved back, a curtain caught in the sliding window. And in the garden there are traces of another visitation:

returning to my Kyoto garden

long stalks bowed to the hard ground

the long-gone snow