The Pinecone

The pine-cone has thirty-two rows of brittle spines protecting seeds ready to be dispersed upon an unfriendly world. She is the color of milk Hersey’s chocolate and when rubbed slowly, calls out like a rainmaker. She is a nursery, holding within the hopes and dreams of a stately pine. As you are trodden upon and become the diet of worms you complete your task, dyeing and yet giving life to a generation to come. You smell of sap and warm summer evenings basking in the glow of an ever-green forest. You dream of days spent swaying in the breeze with your comrades, leisurely looking down upon the comings and goings of a mad world. You grew strong and wise, thinking deep thoughts and dreaming deep dreams. And then you fell… down, down, down, with the wind rushing by and the earth quickly coming to focus, a world you’ve only seen from a distance. I found you hiding under a bush, slightly soggy, becoming accustomed to a new life among the ants and thistles, sharing your secrets of the world above. And now you are in my hand waiting to again find the soft earth and lose yourself within.