With all of the recent snow finally melting away, I find myself finally coalescing some thoughts about snowflakes. Every snowflake is rumored to be unique, no two crystallizing in quite the same pattern. This fact gets bandied about to talk about people, how we are all unique and it is certainly true. I suspect that there are common themes in snowflakes, groups they can be ordered into, just like with people. For the moment, let’s just assume everyone is totally and completely unique. If everyone is unique, then being unique is nothing special. It’s just a fact.

I’ve met a lot of people who want to tout their uniqueness, proclaim the uniqueness of others. They hold it up as a beacon of hope, wonder, and greatness. I do my best to play along. What they say is true, after all. But I personally want no part of this special snowflake syndrome. I don’t care if I’m special. I don’t care if I’m unique. A single unique snowflake doesn’t really accomplish much in this world. Think of the sheer number of snowflakes it took to bury Boston this year? By the time they all land, in order to do something, it takes many many snowflakes coming together to do something greater than any single individual.

What’s more, it’s when the snow melts, let’s go of its for and structure and turns to water, that it can seep into the cracks, refreeze, tear apart roads and mountains. It isn’t in uniqueness that the world is transformed, but in deep engagement with the help of many others. Sure, there will always be a first few flakes to fall, a first few flakes to stick. There will always be people to start the process, to show the way. We hold these people up, these Kings, Ghandis, Mandellas. But it is the force of the countless unnamed masses behind them that made their accomplishments possible.

I don’t want to be a special snowflake. I want to be a part of the blizzard. I don’t care if I am unique. I care that I make a difference.

Over this past year, my life has been infused with poetry. It started with last spring’s concert with the Bowie Senior Chorale which I programmed entirely with poems set to music. Researching and assembling that concert was a great joy that reawakened my love of poetry. I would read a poem to the chorale at the beginning of rehearsals. Then, I also spent some time with a poet who introduced me to so many amazing poets and poems, and who I have had some fantastic conversations with.

This first poem was a predecessor to the fairytale I recently posted:

My hand-blown heart didn’t break easily,

double-paned gorilla glass,

that’s what I gave her.

Blind to the grindstone

tethered to her past.

I pressed myself to her

Ground to sand,

until, nothing left,

she released me:

My star-scattered heart

wrapping the earth

in Love.

—–

The second poem came out of conversations with my friend about the Minimalist movement. The art and music worlds both had strong minimalist movements, and I was curious if there was an analog in poetry. She sent me some Gertrude Stein poems, but it didn’t resonate with me and my experiences with minimalism. In minimalism, repetition draws the mind into a different kind of space, and subtle nuances often become enormously powerful details. This was my attempt at a minimalist inspired poem:

tod und verklärung

(death and transfiguration)

Fear.

fear fear

fear fear fear

fear fear fear fear

fear of fear of fear of fear of

fear of fear of fear of

fear of fear of

fear of

fear love

fear love fear love

fear love fear love fear love

fear love fear love fear love fear love

VEER

love here love here love here

love here love here love here

love here love here

love here

love heir

love heir love heir

love heir love heir love heir

love heir love heir love heir love heir

love where

love where

loves where

loves where loves where

love is where love is where

Love is.

where

Fear goes to die.