I

Snow is like birch trees
Pointing out white clouds
And white stars
In the sky

Dreaming of fields
Of white flowers
In the stillness,
The starlight

Turning slowly in the silence;
Never filling up shapes,
Never moving away,
Like pieces of paper

The snow lays in drifts,
Silently sleeping,
Barely moving or whispering
In the depths of its dreaming

II

Snow is like pieces of sky falling
In pieces of six pointed stars
Falling slowly,
Silently,

Into memories of the woods
And lonely footsteps through the woods
That end in standing still
Somewhere
Under the stars

Where the cold stops the trees from growing
And stops the birds from flying,
The snow dances to music
It hears in the silence

III

Snow dreams of flowers,
White petals,
The pieces of six pointed stars
Becoming six petals of blossoms

Rising back into the sky again,
White flowers ascending
Into white clouds
And into white birds

In flight over the flowerbeds

IV

The snow comes to a stop.
Starts dancing again
Under the white sheets,
In all kinds of colors
Come back to life again,
Waking up from the deep sleep
And the forgotten white of winter
To give shape to the shapelessness,
Make the motionless move

Into the light again,
Into skies wide with white clouds
And nights bright with starlight
Where the stars point to the north,
An arctic circle of light,
The cold alchemy of white.

V

The snow seems to dance in circles,
From white into color and back into white again,
Listening and singing and dancing and dreaming
Of starlight and moonlight,
The white bark of birch trees
And the white petals of flowers
Waking up in the spring time,
White pieces of paper
Becoming poetry and music,
The music of a ballet
Whose footsteps trail off
Into wandering loneliness
And a stillness of dreams.

White clouds in the starlight.