Up and Away

 

Up and Away

I remember when we were one family,

a DNA knot of brothers and sisters

moving through the world like a single identity.

Our house was loud, the table full,

and the future felt like a road we’d all walk together,

rarely imagining a day when the paths would split.

But time thins the strongest herd.

Anchors loosen and days slip away

Now the children of our children rise like small constellations,

each finding their own orbit,

drawn to whatever feels like home,

whatever light fits the shape of their own becoming.

Their gravity is gentler than ours ever was.

I see the cousins now,

how they form their own circles tight as fists,

How they choose which aunt or uncle

fits the story they’re writing.

Some of us now fade to the family edges,

not because of intent or harm,

But because they never knew

the version of us that once

held this thing together.

They don’t remember the old map.

They don’t know the roads we all walked

to keep the name alive.

They only know the fragments,

the pieces of stories that reached them,

the ones that felt familiar enough to keep.

And so the branches drift.

Branches not broken,

just bending toward different suns.

So I stand here,

one of the originals,

holding the memory of the whole family tree.

I can feel the distance,

But I also feel the roots,

deep, stubborn,

quietly insisting

that even scattered leaves

belong to the same soil.