In formation

When the temperature plummets

The wild ones settle down

Those in flight lose their momentum, they seek a place to land and regroup

Condensing on anything cool and smooth

Those phrenetic ones

Those little buzzing kinetic ones

Those party molecules

Who roil and roam with their fellows,

They stop their raves

For now they only have the energy to

Mill about

They begin to line up

Outside your window

For the Great Calm

They get in formation

Not for battle but for your information

They crystallize

On the pane

And they shimmer in the starlight

All to tell you

You

Should

Stay

Under

Your

Blankets

Those molecules

They still have a pulse, but they won’t rave or fly again,

Not until the sun comes next Spring

They have formed rigid marriages,

Like fairy-sized gemstones

Because that’s the way they like to freeze.

They click and clack as they huddle in step

A billion tiny firecrackers

Lining up side by side,

Rank and file

And in the grass

Below your window the frost creaks as it claims the fallen leaves

The moisture has all left the air, there is only oxygen and nitrogen

And all of it chilled to an electric blue

Crack your window:

Can you smell it?

The air is pure of all water

Zero percent humidity

Except where you breathe,

Plumes of dragon smoke rush from your lungs to the dry, empty air

Breathe it in,

Cold,

Scratch some of the frost with your thumbnail

If you were to go outside, into the night,

You’d crunch the frosted leaves beneath your slippers

There is a puddle out there

With a layer of glass over its surface

And an ocean of liquid water underneath

A puddle

The model

Of Jupiter’s moons

If you were to

Step

Gently,

Just hard enough to crack the ice

But not hard enough to plunge your toes into the frigid sea,

You would see the space

Beneath your shivers

Beneath your slipper

Beneath your soul

And beneath your sole

Where molecules are on the brink

The tipping point

These waters are the last remnants of fall, holding out against the steady approach of winter

And if you were to press an ear to the cold surface

Maybe you would hear them

Molecules

Clicking and clacking

Clicking

And

Clacking

Into formation

The waters are losing

They are freezing

This puddle will not last the night