Kinship Challenge: The Vines of Time

Have ever you passed a home, where vines all through had grown?
Crept through windows, garden and door, where residents resided no more.
Or have ever you seen a tree, where wrapped around like twine,
twisted, turning and ensaring thither, was indeed a great vine!
What thoughts then stirred in your mind? Do you ponder the life left behind?
For where the vine creeps, life surely sleeps; what was has been claimed by time.

Might then you consider this dear friend, for the vine itself is not the end.
Do you see it bud and blossom? That beauty might be born again.
For the end of one thing is not the end - nay - without the end there is no begin.
The last page of the book must be turned, old fields in time may be burned;
A pleasant day with the sun will set, and still time is always turning yet.
The last goodbye, the first hello, all these things we must forgo.
For to take the next step the last must pass, else we find ourselves a hapless mass.

Likewise we ourselves must die to us, lest our souls corrode and rust.
For the things of this earth are but things of dust, and them to our King we must entrust.
So when you see what the vine has borrowed, let not your heart be sorrowed.
Find joy instead, that life is not dead, and consider what lay in the morrow.

Written by Dez ~ Illustration by Kaq

Kinship Challenge: The Life of Water

Still and cold, I sleep. Gently I fell from the sky, oh so long ago. Now I sleep, seemingly forever. Days, weeks, months, and years go by. Then one day the sun breaks through the heavy clouds over me.
She makes me stir. I'm full of life and I want to break away. Her touch is warm and unrelenting, I feel heavy.
Still cold, but heavy. I'm sinking, loosing my grip on the stones. Slipping, slipping.. Then I fall.
Suddenly I have the strength to move again! I start to follow the path down. As I go, I feel stronger and stronger. I run faster and faster.
Soon I am flying down the mountain, gathering and roaring for all to hear.
The white fades away, the stones become bare and surrounded by green. I now carve my own path toward the valley below.
On I go!

A drop awaits me up ahead, but I am not afraid. I charge forward. I know I can fly!
So I fall, I fall past the trees, past the arch, past the lights, now the balcony.
I have gone under, my glimpse was brief, yet still I continue on.
There is more to see, more to visit.
On I run!

Forever I run, gathering more strength and roaring louder as I join others who are like me.
We will continue on forever until we reach the big sea!
Then, one at a time, we will ascend again to the clouds.
I will join the sun in the sky that first gave me my desire to run.
Then I will fly back to where I began and softly descend again. The circle will not end.

Written by Cat  ~  Illustration by Mae