Snowflakes

As a child in Hawaii, I remember cutting snowflakes out of paper. Our cutouts always had either 4 or 8 points depending on how you folded it.

I never believed that such things really occurred in nature. It didn't seem possible. Even after moving to Illinois, at first I saw snow as a mass of white, often beautiful, often slushy, always cold.

In Illinois I would stare at the windshield when I saw snowflakes bouncing and shattering on the glass. Sometimes individual flakes would fall on my black winter coat and I would stand there and just marvel at its beauty. I saw then that all flakes have 6 points, not 8.

One morning, when the conditions were just right I noticed that many of the flakes had fallen in tact. I tried to take some photos and wished then that I had a better macro lens. Still, I like to look at these photos to feel the wonder again.

Postscript from December 24, 2009:

I got the following e-mail from Amanda of Amanda's Musings and just had to share it with you all. Thanks so much for sending this poem, Amanda.

Hello Kay,
I was reading through an anthology of Christmas poetry and I thought of you when I read this poem by Clive Sansom.

Snowflakes
And did you know
That every flake of snow
That forms so high
In the grey winter sky
And falls so far
Is a bright six-pointed star?
Each crystal grows
A flower as perfect as a rose.
Lace could never make
The patterns of a flake.
No brooch
Of figured silver could approach
Its delicate craftsmanship.
And think:
Each pattern is distinct.
Of all the snowflakes floating there –
The million million in the air –
None is the same.
Each star
Is newly forged, as faces are,
Shaped to its own design
Like yours and mine.
And yet… each one
Melts when its flight is done;
Holds frozen loveliness
A moment, even less;
Suspends itself in time –
And passes like a rhyme.

Amanda
http://scrandasmusings.blogspot.com//