Stardust

There are fissures everywhere; the sunlight warms the barren soil, pleading it to live, reminding it that before it was here, it was stardust, floating in the infinite with everything that has ever been. 

There has been so much pain and so much darkness and no choice but to plod ahead, but now there is the hint of a defrost, of a thaw and the hope of spring. There is beauty and light and the grace of dawn and that which was frozen sits in the potential of the things to come; there is a whisper of life, of green things and petals and astonishing color. The new roots grasp desperately to the soil, interconnecting, holding one another as they stretch upward toward an unknown next.

The world holds both grief and joy for them in equal measure. The grief will drown them. The joy will buffer them. The roots must grow deep and interconnect with those nearby. The storms will come and they will hold one another. Drought will come and they will share what little bounty they possess and they will mourn the loss of those who do not make it. The price of their love will be agonizing grief. But they will pay it again and again.

They will grow and flourish and there will be Aprils where the sharpness of the flowers will catch the breath of people who walk nearby. The people will say: "if that isn't nice, I don't know what is" and they will remember for a fraction of an instant that they, too, are stardust. 

The growing things will sit through hard, barren winters and summers that bake them brown. The moon will wax and wane and they will sing with the crickets in the long, eternal nights. And one desperate spring they will no longer flower and their roots will grow tired and they will droop in the heat of the summer sun. And in the next winter, they will sigh and they will quietly smile at the young ones nearby. Their roots will grasp desperately for one another and sing with words of gratitude for the time given them. It will never be enough.

And at last, they will feel the hint of the sun on their petals and the grace of the wind through their leaves and the friendly muttering of their neighbors and they will mutter one last, small song. There will be grief and mourning but also celebration. They were first stardust and for a moment, they were here. And now they are stardust again, with all the things that have ever been.