In the space between two pines
I find a legacy of my own illusions

In the space between two pines
Lives a lifetime’s pungency of desire
Sticky limbs heavy and weighted against the winds tender encouragements
Endlessly bowing to the great space

Decades of this dance, days of dreaming
Only a stone between as each pine is pining
Needled by their very existence
No tender touch, when silence breaks

But Ho and humbled am I, the trees whisper another tale and this not of woe.

Once there were two trees on a hillock, brought by crows in the fruit to which they were sewn. One came by the north wind and one by the south. Their sweetness devoured they slipped under stone and took a long nap.

In darkness the seeds had slept, time covered them in blankets of soil resting until a point when magic took over and the seeds awoke. The seeds knew darkness, but not loneliness for a deep voice within told them what to do, in visions and in dreams. They dreamt of unspeakable things and a breaking deep crack that was terrifying and yet it was getting ever uncomfortable to remain within.

And separately, but together, they broke open and cracked all up. Feeling completely crazy they pushed a tender tendril of all their dreams into the unknown. It was all so new, each thing happening, soon they put out more and more of themselves. They found the unspeakable things of their dreams to be warm, nourishing, and not scary at all.

Many years went by as the saplings became trees more robust each day, understanding more of the light and their depth. Putting down roots and standing up tall, they had grown out from under a rock and as they outgrew it, they met.

Young trees that they were, they were quite over wrought! It took many more years before it even occurred that the other was boring, dull, or wood rot. And before that they’d had lots of babies, but none stuck around…you know how it is. So that’s how it came that it was ever just two.

The air between them would fill with sweet smells, stories, and light. Trees have the best memories of all, recording 360 degrees, day and night and round and round. So memories blew back and forth between them and best yet, the secret of their soils was that their roots had gone deep, deep under the rock to a place where there was no space at all. For more years now than they were separate, they had grown together and thus entwined neither would uproot without the other.

The Illusion of Pines, is there is never one story but a multitude, if I asked the sky what went on here we would see an endless world conspiring to reach her, always up, bigger, and higher. Never satisfied, but that is her story. And what of the ground… Do you hear what I do?