Under the Pines
The air is the color of waiting. I sit under the pines as evening gathers itself into stillness. I am waiting for the last of the red light to fall quietly across the ground. The needles beneath me cross and recross in a pattern too intricate to belong to accident or to design. I stare downward until their lines begin to move as though what I am seeing has been breathing all along. I think of when I first saw this sky, how its silence touched my eyes, and for a moment I think recognition itself is the world, that what returns is never the same but always brings its shadow with it. I cannot tell what time it is. Light seems to rest on its own reflection. Everything holds. Even the wind seems to stand aside. And I sit here under the pines waiting for the shape of the sky to become the shape of my looking.
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Thank You!



This is a wonderful reflection, Paul. And, apart from anything else, I can really visualise you sitting there trying to decide if there is an intended pattern in the seemingly random way that pine needles fall. Such an evocative image!
Good Sunday, @KathieOC, and thank you for this restack!