snowflakes
Frost forms near to us -
on a blade of grass, a window pane.
Shocks of frozen feathers secure,
bound to the fixed planes
of our mornings and nights,
anchored by the promise
of metamorphosing molecules.
The housechores of a warm cottage
shrouded in thick thatches of dawn-glint
softly bake away bonds, sliding now -
sliding, sliding, breaking -
two shattered vintage cordials,
a new year’s toast transformed
to sharp and shining rubble,
mined from the walls of a cave
by the beak of a bluebird.
No, we took shape in the sky -
a faraway star birthed in darkness,
an old filament quietly sparking to light
from the center of a ceramic Christmas bulb
in the attic of your father’s house.
We branched like oaks,
six spokes, a child’s bicycle
six petals, your favorite blossom,
six needles, a broken compass.
We formed in rippled heavens,
In upper atmospheres,
In plane highways and drunken moonlight,
In the pews of some astral church
where the winds sing
from the pages of hymnals
so timeworn they’re sheets of water,
Where satellites orbit
like a wet finger on a wine glass,
so loud, so crystalline - can you hear it?
Can you hear what I mean?
My voice is a bell -
struck with the force of the meteors
that shower above us,
sprawling in arcs
like boughs of willow,
like Washington square parks,
like burning red sandstone,
like fireworks in summer.
We formed in layers of clouds,
stitched like rows of knit baby blankets,
tiered like the sugary fondant of wedding cakes.
Like the long-johns and sweaters and coats
and mittens and scarves and hats
your mother dressed you in,
like the rough skin of your hands
that holds the pitched ink naming our love.
Like the rings of your favorite climbing tree,
like your grandmother’s lasagna,
like the heart of the earth,
like roses,
like ocean,
like cardiac muscle -
like everything striated
with the depth of the living.
Four and a half billion years ago,
eight years ago, this morning,
a celestial lineage born of a single moment:
our cells kiss snowflakes from thin air,
then we move through each ribbon of open sky
floating, sinking, spinning, waltzing -
falling.