I walk in a wood of beech trees in early May close to my home in Southern England. The wood is full with life, from its far stretching roots that burrow low beneath my feet, its carpet of leaf and bluebell, to its canopy of glistening light 40 meters (130 feet) above. I have sensed this place over many years.
Life lives its lifetime and visits this wood: microorganisms, plants, insects, birds, and animals. In this place the moon pulls, the sun pours, the rain, snow, mist, and all the incalculable tiny particles that journey through the air become absorbed into its being.
As I walk I sense more than the musky scent of hiding hare, the touch of spider web against my cheek, the glint of shadow and light as the breeze moves the tender lime-green leaves of spring, the bitter taste of bark suspended in the air, the beauty of unseen birds resounding near and far. I sense my nature. I sense my story as child and man. I sense myself as small moment of a greater thing that breathes.
At the heart of every snowflake is a nucleus of dust. This tiny particle could originate from any number of places: the smoke from a forest fire; the minute specks of volcano ash that are pushed into the high atmosphere; the fine debris that falls from a meteor as it streaks across the sky; the microscopic particles picked up by the wind from plant spores and the cells of feather and skin that living things shed each day.
I ponder on the journey of a particle of dust. The dust from one living thing to another.
From someone standing on a hill looking skyward, from distant sand, and then for days across an ocean far below, until on high, ice crystals enfold and change the particle of dust to form a single snowflake that lightly tumbles to the earth and, after time, comes to fall upon my palm. I sense its cold but cannot feel its weight. like the image that accompanies the poem, it is as light as light itsesf, waiting to be known by the warmth of my attention. I easily ignore a solitary snowflake, yet its journey can be as great as any I have made.
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A Solitary Snowflake Falls
A speck of dust from soil or sand,
From powder down or loose brushed skin,
Encased within its centre lays,
A prick from past of living thing.
As snowflake falls,
The grain returns in shallow husk of crystal white,
Come gently lay upon this earth,
In wait and warmth in day or night.
