tinyflower

[tinyflower]

we are made of star stuff,

atoms squeezed together to make up something or nothing.

everyone is so small

in the big picture

doing anything seems pointless if you zoom out just a little.

the only thing we can really learn here

is how to take things,

make them beautiful

and then how to let them go.

the crushing weight of having something,

and then suddenly not having it,

is how you know you’re human.

my dad wanted some of his ashes scattered on the baseball field where my brother and i played,

take it. make it beautiful. let it go.

my mom waters the plants now,

bloom, wilt, bloom again,

let it go.

the pictures are still up in the hallway,

but the funeral flowers are gone,

let it go, let it go,

everyone turns to dust somehow

so the only way

we’ll ever make it

is if we take it, make it beautiful

and let it go. let it go.

-rebecca northup

[tinyflower]

— Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking