I think
sometimes
about how a pine
must stay
where it is placed.
How it cannot free
its heart
and that the heartwood 
always hardens first,
helping it to stand.

Without asking why,
it makes of itself
a home for all things
plain, beautiful, or
only
just necessary;
scatters its prayers 
on winds
and draws what it needs
from where it's rooted.

Pushing itself so,
maybe
the lead bud is lost,
it grows haywire and 
higher,
raising up then what
it's chosen to bear,
thinking of nothing,
just continued, blind
giving.

So what 
if bark goes brittle
and the needles brown,
that it feels itself fall
and gives 
over to rot from
within.
It does so at peace, 
on the side of life
only.

By it
other lives spring up
every green which way
but what does it get
from losing itself?
I mean
it was quite noble
but where 
is the wild romance
in that?