The Cycle

The Cycle

Sitting around in this cold weather used to be so relaxing. All my fellow flakes would join together and form a community. We would share our cold, ice bits, and just hang out on the ground. Sometimes, there were others who took pieces of our group and remolded us into beautiful sculptures that were admired.

We would all hang around for a while until the sun would encourage us to rejoin with the earth. It was a beautiful life.

Obviously, that was another lifetime ago. This time instead of falling onto a bountiful patch of earth, I had to land on what those inhabitants call “a road”.

It was so pleasant on the way down. Me and those other flakes around me had such great plans. Then we landed. We created a glorious white visage. But it didn’t last long.

First there were the racers. As they trampled up and down this road on top of us, spewing those foul puffs of smoke and soot, our pristine whiteness became darkened.

Then came those plows, trucks, and snow blowers. It was bad enough for them to throw dirt on us, compounding the dark color we were already displaying, but now they added crystals, that were sent to break us apart, dissolve our group, and send us back to the earth in puddles of despair.

There were those of us who got to exist for a little longer as we were forcibly pushed and compacted to the side of the road. We were so compacted that even the inhabitants with their puny shovels couldn’t break us apart. Where is the beauty in that?

But that is our lot in life. Sometimes a picture of beauty and other times a dirty blackened block of ugliness just waiting for sun to send us home to start anew.

Hopefully we can serve some purpose as we leave. May it be so.

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It sure is tight down here. The earth has compacted around me. It is hard and cold. But I want to grow. So I just wait. I know my time will come.

As time passes, I’m beginning to feel a little stronger. The ground is getting warmer and I feel wetness around me coming from above. Something is both warming the ground and allowing water from the surface to give me strength to grow.

I stretch as high as I can. I do this every day.

With a final push, the tip of my stem breaks the surface and now it is no longer dark. Thank you, whoever you are that has chosen to leave this beautiful world and seek me out. May I be able to return the favor as I grow and send you back to the sky or wherever you came from.

I recognize that thing in the sky. It is called the sun. It called to me. It feeds me. There are few spots of whiteness on the ground that I’m sure had a hand in my feeding.

The water, the sun and now the earth, that happy warm earth, all work together to help me provide food for myself to grow. And so I shall.

What will I become? I do not know yet. I hope I will be something beautiful and helpful to those who placed me in this ground. For that I am grateful.