Planting Trees

Pine needles bow in the wind, considerate hosts, as I enter the brief forest. Pine cones throw their great bodies with effort from the branches, following their acorn cousins down into the soft earth. Even the sun slips lower in the sky, vying for a peak at the busy scene below the treeline. As if in rebellion, or unfettered hope, the silvery sigh of an exhale hangs in the winter air before me, takes one weary look around, and ascends the spiral staircase through the trees, up, up into the clouds above.