Look, my daughter, the pine tree
dropped its seeds, and here
a fragile sapling braves the forest floor.
This used to be a birch tree
but lightning sliced it, wind heaved
its heavy breath and now
the trunk is rust. Sticks once flared
skirts of springtime buds,
but now we throw the broken limbs
into rushing floodwaters
to see how quickly we could be carried
away. Always a hair too close
to the edge, pebbles skitter
into the river. Let’s find our way
back from this spring rage, out of the valley
that catches what used to cling
above. Climb this mountain
with its tread marks, hoof prints,
decomposing oaks—we are not the first
to grow and fall. But see the way
the leaves return to earth, the way the dust
collects. Crocus blades emerge
from crumbling stumps as if this growth
does not take more than soil,
light, and rain. Reach down, my child,
bring a pine cone home to show
how miraculously we are carried.