Sand

Grains.

I am made up of small, tiny specks of  substance.

I am so light that any wind worth its salt can lift me up and fly me whither it will.

I am so heavy that, contained, I am ballast for ships and balloons.

I am so soft that you can sink into me and imprint me with your features.

I am so rough that I can wear away the hardiest and sturdiest of  materials.

I can run into the smallest cracks and clog the tiniest of orifices.

I can pack solid into walls and banks and mounds.

I can be structured into sculptures, landscapes and dunes.

I can mark the echo of the waves on the sea bed.

I can measure time and count the hours.

I can be as putty in your hands, fashioned into cups and containers.

I can colour myself in different shades.

I can take on the hues of the fertile fields or the barren deserts.

I can absorb moisture and hold it  clammy and cool to the touch.

I can hold the heat and scorch your skin with dry intensity.

I am all these things, I do all these things.

I am as versatile as I am plentiful.

Yet what  really is a grain of sand to you?

A small speck of undisclosed substance.

By myself I am as helpless and insignificant as a molecule of oxygen.

But put me with billions and gazillions of other grains and I become strong and powerful and versatile.

I can be everything and nothing.

And just as I can be defined and undefined, so can the palette of the artist represent the abstract and the concrete.

It is your choice to remain scattered and formless or to collect your thoughts into a myriad of structured, architectural masterpieces.

What will you do with the grains of ideas that stir in your head?

Would you let them be dispersed with the winds of time or would you gather them into concrete expressions and manifest them into the physical world?