Snow

Snow

1.
'Who affirms that crystals are alive?'
I affirm it, let who will deny:
Crystals are engendered, wax and thrive,
Wane and wither; I have seen them die.

Trust me, masters, crystals have their day,
Eager to attain the perfect norm,
Lit with purpose, potent to display
Facet, angle, colour, beauty, form.

2.
Water-crystals need for flower and root
Sixty clear degrees, no less, no more;
Snow, so fickle, still in this acute
Angle thinks, and learns no other lore:

Such its life, and such its pleasure is,
Such its art and traffic, such its gain,
Evermore in new conjunctions this
Admirable angle to maintain.

Crystalcraft in every flower and flake
Snow exhibits, of the welkin free:
Crystalline are crystals for the sake,
All and singular, of crystalry.

Yet does every crystal of the snow
Individualize, a seedling sown
Broadcast, but instinct with power to grow
Beautiful in beauty of its own.

Every flake with all its prongs and dints
Burns ecstatic as a new-lit star:
Men are not more diverse, finger prints
More dissimilar than snow-flakes are.

Worlds of men and snow endure, increase,
Woven of power and passion to defy
Time and travail: only races cease,
Individual men and crystals die.

 

3.
Jewelled shapes of snow whose feathery showers,
Fallen or falling wither at a breath,
All are afraid are they, and loth as flowers
Beasts and men tread the way to death.

Once I saw it upon an object-glass,
Martyred underneath a microscope,
One elaborate snow-flake slowly pass,
Dying hard, beyond the reach of hope.

Still from shape to shape the crystal changed,
Writhing in its agony; and still,
Less and less elaborate, arranged
Potently the angle of its will.

Tortured to a simple final form,
Angles six and six divergent beams,
Lo, in death it touched the perfect norm
Verifying all its crystal dreams!

 
 

4.
Such the noble tragedy of one
Martyred snow-flake. Who can tell the fate
Heinous and uncouth of showers undone,
Fallen in cities! -- showers that expiate

Errant lives from polar worlds adrift
Where the great millennial snows abide;
Castaways from mountain-chains that lift
Snowy summits in perennial pride;

Nomad snows, or snows in evil day
Born to urban ruin, to be tossed,
Trampled, shovelled, ploughed and swept away
Down the seething sewers: all the frost

Flowers of heaven melted up with lees,
Offal, excrement, but every flake
Showing to the last in fixed degrees
Perfect crystals for the crystal's sake.

 
5.
Usefulness of snow is but a chance
Here in temperate climes with winter sent,
Sheltering earth's prolonged hibernal trance:
All utility is accident.

Sixty clear degrees the joyful snow,
Practising economy of means,
Fashions endless beauty in, and so
Glorifies the universe with scenes

Arctic and antarctic: stainless shrouds,
Peaks in every land among the clouds
Crowned with snows to catch the morning's fire. 

 

John Davidson 

 

 

 

 "Lit with purpose, potent to display/Facet, angle, colour, beauty, form."

     

Is a snowflake alive? The answer seems obvious until I read this poem. When Davidson records their beginning through to their end, there are so many parallels to our individual lives, it's undeniable. And, of course, it works the opposite way too. Our lives are very much like the snowflake's. We are fragile, "wither at a breath", we too are "lit with purpose", and cringe under a microscope.

 

I also like how he describes -  "a seedling sown/Broadcast, but instinct with power to grow/Beautiful in beauty of its own." - which is the same macro/micro theme that we use when speaking of humanity and the individual. How he portrays the death of one snowflake under a microscope and moves to the masses, the blizzards of crystal-work that have passed before our eyes - "Such the noble tragedy of one/Martyred snow-flake. Who can tell the fate/Heinous and uncouth of showers undone/,Fallen in cities! -- showers that expiate/Errant lives from polar worlds adrift
Where the great millennial snows abide;/Castaways from mountain-chains..." So interesting. Looking at history we see the correlation. Groups of people, nations, growing, spreading "broadcast" across the land, these also hold ground for a while and then fail. 

 

Rather beautiful, if you ask me. You might say "How homo-centric!" Quite true. I'm human, and I cannot see through other-than-human-eyes. It's a limited point of view, but it doesn't lack for beauty and insight. Thinking, examining, appreciating the world around me, seeing how I am like the snow - it's not a trivial thing. It helps me endure, sometimes it enlightens. It reveals the patterns we are all a part of.

 

 

"Worlds of men and snow endure, increase,
Woven of power and passion to defy
Time and travail: only races cease,
Individual men and crystals die."