You and Snow

by Jim Moore

Like snow, I was born 

in the distant belly of a mother 

I never knew as well as when, 

point by lovely point, 

I was forming myself inside her. 

I came from nowhere, 

fell softly on new air. 

I did not know where the drift of weather 

or the iron tide of chance would carry me. 

I fell far beyond my own control, 

giddy with release. 

I was most myself 

in this my only falling 

onto our earth.

Snow's depth is the instant shape 
it gives a thing: what snow touches shifts,
just slightly, bringing the sweet pleasure
of merest change,
the way a human will touch a human
lightly on the wrist and that day
is different, slightly and forever:

I am one among many,
our lives linked, as drifting snow
 is linked, in mutual need and fallen beauty.

- from The Freedom of History (1988)