She wrapped her woollen shawl against her tender bones,
as frail and white as freshly fallen snow outside.
The snowflakes mutely sprinkled gingerly like rice,
then melted, leaving tarnished grasses to the cold.
She mutely waited by her simple, ashen phone
and thought of all her children’s bulging, frog-like eyes,
with wonder, watching early snows and all the ice -
but that was long ago, and thoughts like that are old.
She missed her role as mother, though. The time seemed brief,
yet full, like festive winters passing on the breeze.
She waited for her older husband’s waking words
and wondered at the emptiness within. She saw
as sparrows took to morning flight while mother birds
would wait with worry, loneliness beginning, raw.
I wrote four sonnets for my English novel study based on the fantastic novel Shizuko's Daughter by one of my favourite authors, Kyoko Mori. It tells of four women and their struggles in Japan. The protagonist Yuki deals with her mother's suicide; her mother Shizuko deals with her husband's affair; Hanae, Yuki's new stepmother deals with her bitter life; and Masa, Yuki's grandmother, must deal with the fact that her daughter took her own life.
ReplyDeleteThis sonnet was "Winter", representing Masa an aging grandmother. It was the final poem in my sonnet cycle, Four Women, with each sonnet assigning a season to similar characters in Shizuko's Daughter.