This Wee-houred Morn

I watch your travels.  

Elegant

   White 

      Light 

          Snowflake.

From the sky of clouds, you fall.

Fall on my tree, please.

Fall where I can ask you where you’ve been.

Fall were I can see you lightly fill the leafless branches.

Only a window to separate us.

I’ve watched all your comrades fall with you.

Wind-catching lightness leads many of them.

The wall by my window 

prevents careless wind 

Which won’t alter your fall. 

There you are!

You light on the one dead leaf of my tree.

How agile you must be to consider this feat.

Where did you come from?

What path did you take to touch down on this

One leaf

    One tree,

         One level 

so my eyes can savor you delicateness?

Why do your friends choose a gustier path?

Don’t they need rest?

Don’t they care to share their beauty they radiate?

Or has it been decided for them?

They’ve moved on so quickly,

Propelled by forces you were not.

Their missions may end in meltdown.

On a warm car windshield,

Or a cold steel railroad track.

I heard the train whistle its proximity.

Some have landed on blackbirds’ wings.

I watch as they shiver them off, like flakes of nuisance.

With their “Caw, caw, caw!”

Even the little, black and white chickadees,

And the bright red cardinal,

Carelessly touch down on snow-filled branches.

No pre-mediation on how they’ll scatter the white, 

snow-essence from their destined perch.

Like it won’t matter at all.

I love the chill of you.

You who teach only to live by gravity, wind and birds.

You let them be your guides.

But, you, my snowflake.

You have not elected to be flung from a branch,

Or scraped from a windshield.

You will rest and wait for your destiny.

You will fall only when the 

dry

   brown

       dead 

           single, perpendicular leaf

Falls from my otherwise emptied-leaf tree.

What will you say when others want to nest on your leaf?

Will you push them off?

Will you gather them beside you?

Only to create the weight our gravity so loves to urge on?

You won’t fall alone.

You who have nestled among others.

Joined forces. 

Fearless of the fall on this wee-houred morn.

I do not laugh at you

Or envy your passage.

I can only watch through my window, 

The magic of your existence.

A witness to your

rich

   simplistic 

          life.