(Un-numbered)

The Adirondack Chair’s Dream

written by Mathias Svalina

I am floating in the air, as if I were a bit of cottonwood fluff. The wind pushes me this way & that, twirling & coaxing me. As I move through the air, suddenly an enormous snowflake joins me. The snowflake is as large as me. The largest snowflake I’ve ever seen. The enormous snowflake is also buffeted by the wind, but buffeted in a way that it mirror’s my movements, spinning around me, dancing with me. But it’s too warm for snow, I think, & just as I think this, the edges of the snowflake begins to melt, its crystalline arms loosening into water. We only have these brief moments together, & then we are gone. I keep dancing with the snowflake as it melts, mirroring the snowflake’s melting dance, which grows increasingly simple & clumsy, until the snowflake is entirely melted & I am dancing with only my memory of the snowflake. In this way, by dancing with the memory, I continue to dance with the snowflake.