I wrote this many moons ago (okay, so maybe just over a year ago or so!), but I don't think I ever shared it. In keeping with the theme of the piece, life is a cycle, and right now it's relevant again. Hence, it feels appropriate to post it now, more than ever. Enjoy :)
It's life, isn't it: that things start, grow into themselves, take their course, then- ultimately, infinitely- reach their end. See, for instance, the sunflower, with a metamorphosis both terrible and beautiful.
To start, the seed in question must be lucky, to have fallen somewhere it can thrive- to have escaped being eaten, or lost, or destroyed. However, surely this goes without saying? A sunflower at the pinnacle of life is incredibly lucky, that's a given.
From there, a sprout forms, breaking the confines of the striped cell to put down roots in the very soil of the earth. Once anchored, growth can begin, a burrowing through the close safety of the birthplace and into the world above.
After the green bud has poked it's head up and out, it's attention is caught by the sun. It yearns to get as near to it's hero as possible, to emulate it in every way. Simply put, it dreams: and it follows those dreams. The stalk propels itself upwards, the petals- sun coloured, of course, always sun coloured- unfurling in silent praise. Once done, fully grown and in it's prime, then it can be happy, marvelling in it's accomplishments. It has emanated the sun in the best way possible, and it can settle into the life it has waited for, a life that seems will last forever, just like that glowing orb. Reader, when you stand in a field among the sunflowers, it is the sun itself that surrounds you, and it is infectious: don't you, too, feel that this state will never end?
Of course, there is a problem, with being in a state that feels as if it could last forever, and that is this: there is no such thing as infinite.
When the summer is over, the sunflower falls, tumbles, withering into something unrecognisable from it's former self. It has no choice in this; it must simply take it as it comes, trying not to feel bitter at fate, trying to resist the captivating memories of the golden days, threatening to overwhelm.
But at least it had them, hey? If it's better to have loved and lost, then surely it it better to have risen to the heights and fallen, than to have bypassed that completely? Better, to have been the sun, been the sun...? For without that, are you not- unlucky? And sunflowers, we have already agreed, are lucky. Better to have felt the pulse of the world, so you can keep it beating when the earth is dark.
For though they have fallen, this is still not the end: the sunflower is decaying- a grim word for a natural process, of reducing to the building blocks of life. Once there, they are part of the earth, part of the pattern- no more. No more? They never have been more than that. They are all they ever were, and they will continue to be: the way of the world is that nothing ceases. Take the water cycle, that relentless circle of lakes to vapour to rain to lakes. Take the sunflowers of next year, standing proudly like the sun, made of nothing less than their ancestors. This year's crop may have had their days of prime, but they are not gone.
And that's life, isn't it? We rise, we reign; we keel, and yet we continue.