Snow Drops

to Cath on her 47th birthday

Great archipelagos up high,
Satellites of snowfall on the trees,
Orbiting our ski lift in the sky
And suddenly unleashed by breeze,

Fall slowly through the air
Like exploding galaxies of white,
Floating past our moving chair
To land on pillows for the night,

Engraving in the shadows on the ground
Replicas of their former world,
Planets that our wind has downed,
Sculptures that the earth has hurled

From a dream of tree limb
To the winter’s passing floor,
To advertise an old museum
Behind the forest’s open door.

Tippet Alley
March 7th, 1995
May 8th, 2016