Change’s Ghosts and Flowers

When I read books about people who’d say they hated change,

I could never relate to them.

I’d always think, I would never be that.

I would be grateful as I’d accept change as it comes!

Because it sounded beautiful, romantic, a delightful way to live life.

But now, when change and its scythe appear in my life,

I don’t love it.

Because then it hit;

I realised that change would also mean losing these wonderful people, places, with nothing

but memories, ghosts in their wake.

I realised that some things that I thought were constant,

That would never change or wash away,

Come and go with the tide.

But, when I realised that the scythe had flowers growing around it,

For the beauty of change truly is visible when you realise that,

Even knowing it wasn’t permanent, you loved, and you lived.

And after all, there’s nothing more beautiful than that.

The sky changes colours as easily as trees shed their leaves,

and as we admire their beauty,

we are struck by the beauty of their new phase–

Stunningly new and different and completely unbeknownst to us.

Now, I relate to those characters at the end of books,

who realise that though change brings melancholy, dying leaves and dark nights,

It also brings joy, blooming flowers and sunrise.

Diya Mittai