The Epiphany - January 6, 2021 [Poem]

The Epiphany - January 6, 2021

We all heard the sound
Of icicles
Breaking off and falling
A great distance
To the muddy ground below.


A natural cacophony
Accompanying gravity
And finding its pull
In the weight of the fall
They awaited calamity.


Some heard an order
A method
A breath drawn in silence
And quickly exhaled
As the icicles’ grip
On the parapets failed.


And some heard the crack of a rifle
A trick of the ear
A blasphemy or an epiphany
Hung in the air
A curtain of sound or a shroud
Depending on just where you stood in the crowd.


Inevitable in the silence
Preceding the shattering
Crystalline droplets descended
Like courtiers’ footsteps engaged in seduction
They pattered, foreshadowed
The coming destruction.


Then flashing and crashing
In glistening shards to the ground
Fell the icicles, scattering slivers around
And they marveled how much like a bomb was the sound
How much louder it seemed coming down.


They watched as the icicles splintered
Then sank in the mud of the Washington winter
As blood slowly welled from the cracks
In the earth where the worshipers vied
To be first through the doors to bring water inside.


Some even died as they tried.


But most of us stood as the icicles broke
From the eaves and descended
In gravity’s thrall
To the cold muddy ground
Where their landing was faint as it ended
If anyone heard it at all.


And none of us felt it a fraud
When they melted
As icicles do
In the cold morning sun
And not one raised a fist
To the sky in resistance
To bring the poor icicles
Back into existence.

- 1/9/2021