This Crystalline Journey
They let go their bonds And drift from their branches Their once brief and temporary homes Impostors of snow Parachutes of crystal Gravity takes them hold They came in the dark in a fog made of ice Tiny crystalline families of white So light that gravity Could not find their weight The breeze their master and vessel Following the currents Adrift in this lake Little souls unknowing of where they would wake I saw them suspended, briefly, then wafting Undecided, near still, not seeking a path And I wanted them to care But they could not after all They were only just new and they were hardly aware A constellation of fireflies Clouds of them floating All aimlessly drifting Their lives whimsically changed Then each hoar frost while I slept Found needle or found cleft It become home tightly held As dawn rose and night left |
And there they shine this morning Crystalline rime uncountable To every bare winter surface they have found Wed to each other Their nests built on every inch This entire world of them a frosty wonder Out of the night ether born Without vanity they embarked Upon a journey unknown, to a destiny unmarked Now to awake in this concert Part of an art unrehearsed I am taken surprised By their serendipitous mirth But now loosened from their bonds By beams that have traveled far They drop from their transient places and fall As if a million stars Dancing and drifting and wafting As when they first came Attached now lightly to gravity Falling softly in waves There is no sound I can hear Nor a signal perceived To this long train of hoar frost Lightly leaving the scene No necessity to explain Or ask why they become banished The lives of these crystals just come hence and then vanish id feb.17,2oo9 |