SNOW

So I was walking home last night and saw snow. Beautiful, fat white flakes. Yet I certainly couldn't see the design of the flakes they were too small. People say that no two flakes are alike how do they/we know that? Wouldn't they melt if brought in and put on a microscope? Anybody have any ideas?

Witchbaby

Yeah, you can see the difference if you stick your face down so close your nose is almost touching. When I did this, it was dark outside, so I had to use a flashlight. I imagine the glare during the day would make it harder to see. Also, it helps if it is a fluffy snow, and newly fallen. Happy looking closely,

You can see the patterns of snowflakes best by catching them on a dark piece of paper and looking at them with a magnifying glass. They're beautiful. But I don't understand how people can say for sure that no two are alike. There are billions of snowflakes. Much, much more than that if you count all the snowflakes that have ever fallen, not just the ones present now. Although it may seem that no two are alike, you never know. - Nikki

 The snow
 began here
 this morning and all day
 continued, its white
 rhetoric everywhere
 calling us back to /why/, and /how/
 /whence/ such beauty and /what/
 the meaning; such
 an oracular fever! flowing
 past windows, an energy it seemed
 would never ebb, never settle
 less than lovely! and only now,
 deep into the night,
 it has finally ended.
 The silence
 is immense,
 and the heavens still hold
 a million candles; nowhere
 the familiar things
 stars, the moon,
 the darkness we expect
 and nightly turn from. Trees
 glitter like castles
 of ribbons, the broad fields
 smolder with light, a passing
 creekbed lies
 heaped with shining hills;
 and though the questions
 that have assailed us all day
 remain -- not a single
 answer has been found --
 walking out now
 into the silence and the light
 under the trees,
 and through the fields,
 feels like one.

"First Snow" by Mary Oliver