The Quarry

Crystal Trillions

Crystal Trillions Whiter than bone they fall, and the field where the children kicked a ball is gone. Anonymous in their trillions, whiter than bone they move in the wind like an orchestra, this way and that. I think of the uncomplaining ones, whose lives were hard but solaced by an idea: an afterlife, like a pale yellow sun they saw through clouds. They didn’t know it was this, though—to go flying as crystals blown by the wind, as powder that whitens the black treetrunks or banks up against a cellar door, but here they are, the trillions drifting past our windows, falling into the memories of children, where they will live as whiteness with an angel or red sled in it, falling into and out of our less retentive memories, small flakes falling in memory of my mother and of yours for K 63 You are reading copyrighted material published by Ohio University Press/Swallow Press. Unauthorized posting, copying, or distributing of this work except as permitted under U.S. copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. ...