Poetry Analysis - Blog Posts

Analysis:

The first few lines about science and untroubled silence puts me in the headspace of the learned astronomer. I appreciate how small of a moment this poem tries to capture, and how that is emcapsulated by the subject of the poem a snowflake (though the word is unused in the poem). Perhaps the exclusion of the word snowflake or any such name for the object of focus has some relation to the final line, which deals in form as a "...perfect individual shape is lost".

A perfect individual shape being lost in the mass of complexity, which on the surface appears simple as snow often does. Thats whats so perplexing about nature, makes me want to stare at it for long periods of time.

Its somewhat melancholic that something as perfectly indivual as a snowflake is lost in frost, yet still when one looks at fresh frost it is beautiful. This touches my gothic sensibilities as someone whose come to see beautiful in the misery of a quiet untroubled life (perhaps thats hard to explain to most people but maybe poets will understand that).

A perfect individual shape being lost in its collective also put me in mind of platonic forms (ie what is a chair?) Perhaps something as seemingly simple as snow is really quite inexplicable when you view it in its totality of snowflakes, such is humanity in the context of humans. I find such truths overwhelming and depressing particularly in cold winter months.

Snow is suffocating with this reminder yet it is also an escape, as it is profound.

(Reblogged with permission from author)

They crystallize in untroubled silence In this early pause, it's a quiet science When you look up Standing so perfectly still No movement but your Breath billowing up towards the sky One catches your eye Before weaving slowly to the ground Before joining the others in the frost You don't make a sound As its perfect, individual shape is lost