Snowflakes arise
in eight categories,
at least eighty variants.
They are rarely
triangles, commonly
hexagons. Needle,
column, plate, rime;
combinations. They appear
white, but are clear.
They aggregate
around dust. Realizing
this, respect dust, the
humble core of every
elaborate crystal
that chills and sanctifies
your lifetime of winters.
Temperature matters;
humidity. And velocity,
the speed at which they
fall through supersaturated
air. We fall at
various speeds.
As rime, they may become
graupel, hard and unforgiving.
As softer crystals, they may be
delicate as the lace doilies
your grandmother tatted
in the old rocker, imagining
you through
the many snows
before you were born.
Meditatio Ephemera 
LOVE this.
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Well, that makes my day. Thanks, my friend, for reading and appreciating!
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Dust. Oh how everything is connected to everything else. Thanks for the morning meteorology lesson! 🙂 And I’ve now got fond images of the doilies placed around my grandmother’s house floating around in my head! -Russ
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Oh, good! Glad you enjoyed the brief tutorial and the evocation, Russ!
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Gorgeous – educational! – and oh, that rocking chair closing, just grabs me. Thank you, Cate – we don’t see much snow in my geography, but old rockers? Yes. Usually some dust associated with old rockers … maybe with those of us older enough to want to sit in such rockers?
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Glad you enjoyed it, Jazz! There’s something about a rocker, isn’t there? Especially antiques and rustics ….
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