The Condition of Being…A Snowflake

Snowflakes fall from the sky. Or is it rather like when I was a child and my mother told me that angels sifted powdered sugar from their places in the clouds? Either way, the journeyers travel long, carried on winds, eyelashes, and the occasional bird wing.

Snowflakes gracefully skate toward a wonder-scape; glistening in grandeur. Some hurry down, straight to the task of weaving a blanket for the Earth. Others sashay and pirouette, dancing this way and that. Their show becomes a lively playground for young and old! Still more flakes scurry, wander and float, until at last they settle alongside their companions. Though each is unique unto itself, they band together, uncomplaining, to carry out the chores of dressing trees in majestic robes and tucking in flowers for the season of night.

Gentle purveyors of silence; who can more than whisper in their presence? My ears care no more for piano or violin, than to hear crystalline “toes” touching down. My head tilts back as one brave flake sacrifices itself for my pleasure; the quick burst of icy electricity on my tongue.

Are these merely tiny, frozen objects? Or, are they our spirited help-mates, urging the joy of awe to melt and spring from our wintry hearts?