They are ladders,
I tell myself, the snowflakes,
and I could climb them
until the small white yard
disappears in the white, white land.
No, I tell myself,
they are kisses,
millions and millions
of small cold kisses.
No. They are voiceless bells
reminding us to come to pray.
Or lightness manifest. Or curtains
to hide our loss. Or perhaps,
I consider, they are
nothing more than snow,
just as a day is just a day,
and a woman is just a woman,
though sometimes she looks outside
of herself for a sign, looks for meaning
in the spaces between the flakes,
as if a drift or gust or squall might mean, well,
it all slips away.
One thing for certain, I am one
of many. One thing for certain.
I am not lost. I am here
leaning into the windswept snowflakes, falling,
and the field I’m in is a field, open and white.
What I like here is that the idea of “trusting” in the title and the end of the poem is delivered to the reader by speculation, by guessing and reguessing, and I get the sense from this that questioning is a form of trusting, which I like.
Also, I think you are smart to open up those spaces “between” the snowflakes at the end as contrast to all that wonderful speculation about what the snowflakes are throughout the poem. Last stanza makes me a believer (but not Davey Jones)
Heading home Monday. Hope the snow is gone…
Thanks Dear David,
It will be nice to have you stateside again, some notion of closeness. Thanks for these comments as always, how I value your thoughts.
I like the heart that’s formed by the ice.
I’m not lost, I’m falling, doing what a lover of the snow does.