Frost Translations

The blind glassblower taught me

how frost works - her fingers reading

dawn's temperature like braille,

showing me how cold bends light

into new languages.

Each morning she'd run her hands

over frozen windowpanes, translating

what winter wrote in crystal.

Said ice was just glass

caught between states of dreaming,

like her eyes before they turned

to marble, when colors still spoke

their true names.

Now she shapes glass bulbs

so thin they catch light

like soap bubbles, holds them up

to where sun should be,

lets winter fill them

with temporary rainbows.

They line her workshop shelves -

perfect spheres of nothing,

each one holding different shades

of what she remembers

about seeing.

Some mornings I find her

in her garden, touching frost

with reverent fingers, smiling

as if she's caught winter

telling secrets. She says

sometimes beauty arrives

too bright for eyes,

needs to be read

by other senses -

like how snowflakes

taste different in darkness,

how silence changes shape

when light leaves crystal.

I watch her gather

morning frost in palms

that know heat's history,

transforming temporary magic

into something that outlasts

its own melting. Her hands

remembering what eyes forget,

teaching glass to hold

whatever light gives it,

however briefly.

Let others praise

what winter looks like.

She shows me how to feel

its changing languages,

how to shape beauty

from what dissolves,

how to find grace

in what cannot stay.