NO TWO SNOWFLAKES ARE THE SAME

How could anyone have checked, or is this
something else to accept on faith, like enough
is enough or what's good for big business
is good for the country and each time I love
you is said it's different? How do you tell
Africans, for whom it's usual

to substitute egret feathers in
translations: no two plumes are a match, and why
does that sound that less dubious? Once you begin
asking there's that icy cold, the six-sided-
symmetry -- too much that's unique to trust
induction. Here the rare returns like dust

you can't brush off and yearnings that go on
to become those persistent selves we resume
each morning as if by magic. The power of reason,
like past and future, could be myth, and Hume,
be right: cause is no more than an habitual
association. Like doubt, but less cruel.

MARK HALPERIN