The Distant Tree – Poem by Rona Campbell

A dendrite tree has just

been crystallised on my window.

This ephemeral delicacy is

free from earth’s bedrock.

I sense she couldn’t care

less about these trivial

ice splinters as she

flings herself around

space on her elliptical

orbital dance.

She’s long since

washed her hands of

her ice age, and

evicted her polycrystalline

offspring to her polar regions;

where these temperamental

states are allowed to

play out their own last days

in molecular bands.

The sun is rising.

Rays of light

strike into the ice.

Twinkle and wink and

eke out visual charms as they

dally up and down ice,

melting branches and

fern like fronds.

There is nothing

tangible left at the end

of this dendrites day,

except a cold nip in the air

and pains covered in

unidentifiable dribbles.