Thoughts drift, like snow; v.2

Thoughts drifting, like snow.

A single flake suspended in the air, an updraft
momentarily halting its
spiraling
downward
float.
Sparkles. Tumbles. Falls,
swaying to and fro as it
falls - no longer caught in the gust,
drawn inexorably
to the clutches of
gravity.

Infinitely spread about me.
They drift. They fall. They rise
in moments of whirling splendor as,
like the exhalation of some ancient dryad
the wind sweeps them
from the earth
into the sky
from which they came.

Tart, sharp, biting, piercing, icy, a blend of smell
all but impossible to describe: this is the
world in which I walk – winter.
Incomparably pale blue
skies tangled with skeins of cotton-white cloud,
then a sweeping
storm of equally pale gray from which
the wonder sweeps down, and
like a child
I am caught in amazement,
my eyes riveted on the heavens
and the mystery drifting toward me.
Each one unique, crafted
in a perfect crystalline design, mingling
together as the wind blows harder,
coalescing into an mass
through which
no light
can
penetrate, darkening the world.

The sun is falling: less seen than felt
as the darkness deepens, trees creaking
under the weight of heavy burdens of perfect white diamonds
of water. Their ever green needles and brown wood
stand in stark opposition to the dusk and
the beauty falling from it. My steps crunch
on old snow turned to ice
over a layer of long-shed bark and needles and winter-dead grass and
brambles torn by the family of deer that passed this way
sometime earlier in the day.

I am alone.
There is mystery,
here.
I am not
lonely.
There is peace.
A kind of silence – silence
that is quieting and not
disquieting.
It is right.
This is solitude, but not
loneliness...
Like the muffling
of every sound
through the gently
falling snow,
my thoughts are
gentled
and stilled.

This is no daring etude: rather,
a tender nocturne, though it is not yet dark.
Viola set against the dark texture of a low piano –
but no chords: single notes
struck against the background of silence,
calling out some melody
unheard before in all man's long history,
the imagination of the divine painted on a canvas
grander than any made by hands of man.
Fluting wind against softly groaning earth, the trees
a tapestry and painting finished all in one.

A stream in the forest, quietly murmuring
as it rushes under what will be
a starless sky of perfect dark
in an hour. Cold and clear, it slides
effortlessly
across pale tan rocks worn
smooth by the steady passing
of the years.
Little crystals born of heaven fleet across it,
just above its surface, caught in the eddies of
air born off the water. They touch its surface and
vanish, subsumed into its flow. Or they dance again
into the heavens to tangle with their brothers, vanishing once more
into the fairy waltz.

The night
begins to deepen.
The forest has become
solemn, still, awaiting the
long cold night ahead with a sort of
delight,
a wondrous anticipation that
flurries
about me
with every step.
No fear, nor restless excitement:
but a still and contemplative
anticipation of the beauty
to come. A foot of
white perfection
will coat the ground,
piled
on every
branch and stem,
come dawn's first pale golden gleam.

And my thoughts drift, like snow, in the night.

Peace.