Snowmen

My ancestor, a man

of Himalayan snow,

came to Kashmir from Samarkand,

carrying a bag

of whale bones:

heirlooms from sea funerals.

His skeleton

carved from glaciers, his breath

arctic,

he froze women in his embrace.

His wife thawed into stony water,

her old age a clear

evaporation.

This heirloom,

his skeleton under my skin, passed

from son to grandson,

generations of snowmen on my back.

They tap every year on my window,

their voices hushed to ice.

No, they won’t let me out of winter,

and I’ve promised myself,

even if I’m the last snowman,

that I’ll ride into spring

on their melting shoulders.

Agha Shahid Ali, “The Snowmen” from The Half-Inch Himalayas, 1987