little systems of care

snowflakes under microscope

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My starting point is the fundamental initial fact that each one of us is perforce linked by all the material organic and psychic strands of his being to all that surrounds him.


—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

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Above us, stars. Beneath us, constellations.
Five billion miles away, a galaxy dies
like a snowflake falling on water. Below us,
some farmer, feeling the chill of that distant death,
snaps on his yard light, drawing his sheds and barn
back into the little system of his care.

All night, the cities, like shimmering novas,
tug with bright streets at lonely lights like his.


—Ted Kooser
Flying at Night

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