White Pines

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

My little cabin is in what they call a holler. Here, the sun is slower to arrive than on the ridges. I prefer to meet it there rather than wait on the world’s slow turning. Greeting the day is ritual. No, it is more than that, it is ceremony. The trees know this too, and I think also all those shrubs beneath them and the vines that use them to reach up to the heavens. Like me, climbing these mountains.

Often, the deer watch me, branches as masks. Today, it was a young white pine the doe chose. She didn’t know that I knew the fawn was beside her, low in the dry stream bed, but I did. They walked on together and I, alone. What do I make of the rabbits in the grassy meadows? How are there so many, so complacent? Isn’t this fox-certainty, coyote-certainty wonderful in the way that it teaches gratitude for clover and love of a moment?

Back to the white pine. There aren’t many here. Not tall. Not dense. Mostly, they are young and spindly. It’s like the artist had forgotten them and then suddenly said, “Oh, pines! There must be pines.” Then he—or she—fit them into the remaining spaces because they are deserving. Five long needles each, that’s how I know they are white pines. Of course, there are also the memories of buying them—white pines—for the dozen Christmases we were something called a family.

Once—well more than once—I sat with glorious children on a faraway mountain watching the sunset and the stars arrive, confident and twinkling. We counted them in three languages and sang songs that these same stars had taught their ancestors out of necessity. I don’t remember the words, but I remember the laughter and how the night sky was caught up in their eyes. They didn’t know darkness like I know darkness. I prayed they never would.

A walk isn’t finished until the walker has acknowledged at least one great vulnerability and discovered something to be grateful for. I’m not talking about the pines. I am saying that maybe we should be more like artists, rabbits, and our ancestors’ children.

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

Published in "Conversations with Mary: Words of Attention and Devotion"

Winner of the Nautilus Book Award gold medal for poetry

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