your favourite stranger

Its always the same. The snow starts to fall and he recoils, screws up his face and takes two steps back from the window. He leaves us wondering what went wrong between him and that charmed white visitor. When did they fall out - and what was said?

Maybe its a matter of weight. He is so solid, so bound to the earth beneath him. He cannot grasp her delight at drifting slowly down from somewhere so high. Maybe its all to do with colour. Or her silence of colour. One as highly patterned as he - all definite swirls of brown and yellow and green - must be disappointed in someone so pale, so vague. Or maybe its her coldness where he is heat. A rock drawn from a fire now extinguished but still smouldering - we hold our hands against him to warm us through these winters that she weaves.

We may never know his reasons - so we stand, mesmerised, watching him watching her - till snow turns to rain and he turns to go.