Michael McClintock: KOI IN WINTER

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It's true — a snowflake screams as it enters water.

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George had read my haibun about the dish at Arecibo that listens to the stars. "This is the other end of the spectrum — micro sound."

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George smiled at my alarm. We were in his backyard, near the koi pool, testing the sensitivity of sound equipment he was engineering for the next Martian probe, intended for landing at that planet's southern pole.

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"What do you make of it?" he asks. "I thought you'd appreciate it. Our senses are gross. Imagine a disk the size of a quarter. Lay a human hair on it. The human hair represents the breadth of what we see and hear of the world. Poets write about the human hair—that's all." He said this teasingly; he was always at me about my interest in poetry. "Of course, you're welcome to it. But for me that's not enough data to draw conclusions."

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I am unnerved by what I hear. Snowflakes are falling into a shallow pan of water. Thin, insulated wires run from the pan to a book-sized electronic device, into which our earphones are jacked.

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George sniffs the air, like a dog. "Perfect conditions today, just a few flakes falling." He turns to his meter. "Here, listen to this . . ."

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I hear heavy panes of glass falling into a street and look at him in disbelief. There is screaming among the falling shards.

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" . . . a snowflake hitting this little metal plate," he says.

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That was four weeks ago. I gaze over the wall into his yard, at the wind-sculpted white. I listen to the sifting shadows. A bright half-moon shines hard in the dogwood tree, a splintered wedge.

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I keep going back to what George had asked so casually. I wonder what he meant when he said, "What do you make of it?"

..............................................do they dream?
...........................................................the fish pond

...........................................................deep under snow

by Michael McClintock
Fresno, California
first published in Frogpond, V25, N1, February 2002