Fragments are parts of things.  Sometimes, you can tell what the original thing was, just by looking at the fragment.

These pieces of driftwood were once trees.

These fragments, all in a row, tell you that once on this beach, there was a dock for boats to tie up.  This remnant is probably from the late 19th Century, when the old-growth timber in the Pacific Northwest was harvested, and floated down a river to Puget Sound, where it was loaded onto clipper ships going overseas, or just to San Francisco.

These sharp rock fragments form a beach on the Columbia River.  They are fragments broken off from the columnar basalt cliffs found all along the river.  Those basalt cliffs were originally magma deep in the Earth’s hot mantle, and were ejected into the air when a volcano erupted in prehistoric times.

These are fragments of metal from a milling machine, which pares away fragments of a larger piece of metal, to make aircraft equipment like a gear or a strut.

Finally, these fragments are from a living thing.  These petals used to grace tulip flowers.  Somehow, seeing those petals on the ground could make you sad.  Until you remember how beautiful the flower was, and how colorful the petals remain.

Here’s the link to this week’s Original Post.