It is good to go on a walk
past the house of a high school friend
and see each window lit up,
tall rectangles of warmth in the gray evening --
snow and sky and siding --
someone in each room,
wrapping presents.
I can picture him and his family.
It's Christmas Eve.
It is good to watch a snowflake
for the last five feet of its life,
pulled into the pavement or onto the lawn,
joining fellow flakes and losing shape.
"The death of individualism," I think.
It saddens me, and I remember holocausts
I survived secondhand, flipping the pages
to discover my own chance survival.
How many snowflakes died each day
during the Holocaust?
And yet the end of their flight
is the cause for my joy,
piles of snow I can lie in
tomorrow, when
it's Christmas Day.
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