Standing in a February Snowfall

[This week we bring you a beautiful poem by my husband, John Hogeland.]

To tell a story.  

How to write a parable, parse a tale, relate a truthism?  How, when memories have been remembered, experiences experienced and the newness is gone stale?

I find it in a moment, a flash of frame, an iotum.  

A snowstorm that is vast, swirling, calling, rising, falling - for a moment stills, catching my breath. 

From this maelstrom, a query, a cognizance, an inspiring - a single crystal coldness in ungloved palm. 

Within the storm, the one is insignificant.  Yet this snowflake is the greater of the two.  The tiny frozen vapor holds the complexity of cosmos.  In the sky, on the earth, in my palm - it disappears.  

It is of itself and of the infinite.  A story of the cold, the heat, the in between.  Bold stratification and mercurial motion.  It encompasses and is contained by all - eternal, exquisite, fleeting.

Within it, I stand alone, alongside all of creation, a spark burning bright for but a moment.  

Focus draws back, back, back to me and mine.

What is the meaning of all this?  Of life?  Of being? she asks.

Where is the theorem, the crux, the proof? 

It is here, it is in this snowflake.  

John raises grass-finished beef and goats on our farm outside of Lovilia, Iowa. You can reach him at johnbutcherman@gmail.com, or leave your comments for him here.

---

In the Dirt is a proud member of the Iowa Writers Collaborative. Please check out the work of my colleagues and consider subscribing to their work.

Laura Belin, Iowa Politics with Laura Belin, Windsor Heights

Doug Burns: The Iowa Mercury, Carroll

Dave Busiek: Dave Busiek on Media, Des Moines

Art Cullen, Art Cullen’s Notebook, Storm Lake

Suzanna de Baca: Dispatches from the Heartland, Huxley

Debra Engle: A Whole New World, Madison County

Julie Gammack: Julie Gammack’s Iowa Potluck, Des Moines and Okoboji

Jody Gifford: Benign Inspiration, West Des Moines

Beth Hoffman: In the Dirt, Lovilla

Dana James: New Black Iowa, Des Moines

Fern Kupfer and Joe Geha: Fern and Joe, Ames

Robert Leonard: Deep Midwest: Politics and Culture, Bussey

Tar Macias, Hola Iowa, Iowa

Kurt Meyer, Showing Up

Pat Kinney, View from Cedar Valley, Waterloo

Kyle Munson: Kyle’s Main Street, Iowa

Jane Nguyen, The Asian Iowan, West Des Moines

John Naughton, My Life, in Color, Des Moines

Chuck Offenburger: Iowa Boy Chuck Offenburger, Jefferson and Des Moines

Barry Piatt: Behind the Curtain, Washington, D.C.

Macey Spensley: The Midwest Creative

Mary Swander: Mary Swander’s Buggy Land, Kalona

Mary Swander: Mary Swander’s Emerging Voices

Cheryl Tevis, Unfinished Business, Boone County

Ed Tibbetts: Along the Mississippi, Davenport

Teresa Zilk: Talking Good, Des Moines

Also, please check out our alliance partner, Iowa Capital Dispatch. It provides hard-hitting news along with selected commentary by members of the Iowa Writers Collaborative.