Читать книгу Ordinary Time - Michael D. Riley - Страница 19

No snowflake ever falls in the wrong place.

—Zen proverb

In the blue-gray blur of this window

I find light enough for disbelief:

My child’s eye above this book of drawings,

no two alike, star-crossed hooks and eyes.

Yesterday, millions died in the gutters,

on lawns and sidewalks, melted on my sleeves

and shoulders, a glitter of brighter light

before the drab stain and chilled bone.

Today their disappearing hexagons

lock hands as far as my eye can guess.

They catch community and silence

in deeps unequaled in fifty years.

Stars fallen into dead weight, they bend

down our breath, shoveling to keep up.

Spring seals itself in crystal palaces.

All the lives of water fall and fill.

Galaxies of tiny lights wink out

in the junipers beside the small front porch.

Between them, one spotlight descends

like a diving bell, seeking the half-size creche

nearly buried in the Gothic alcove.

Kneeling cattle, lambs, shepherds have been

called home. Three kings have been deposed.

Joseph breathes through his nose above

the leaning drifts, bewildered as the rest of us.

All the way in, against the frozen door,

the child and his mother cannot stop smiling,

centered by the hushed and glowing snow.