[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.
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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
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Teresa Zilk: Talking Good, Des Moines
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Thanks to John for the exquisite imagery and this beautiful poem. The snow is miraculous indeed. And so are you. Keep writing!