Pines of Home

I wote this poem for my sister Diane, who was living far away from our childhood home at the time. I recently received a postcard from my friend Leann. On it was a picture of this poem secured with twine around a pine tree, nobly weathering the frost and snow. Leann has vision.

“… a darkness shining in brightness
Which brightness could not comprehend.”
James Joyce, Ulysses


The night ate their shadowsAs fingertip feathers
Of girlhood birds
Startle them out of their firefly dreams.
The pines of home always
Manage to creep inside my ribs,
And you must listen hard
To all the things they don’t say,
While they stand firm,
Sometimes huddled close,
Arms loosely springing out
Like hopes, as they declare
Their deep, wild smell of green embers
To the young moon.
The pines of home
Used to tug at my hair
In turbulent girlhood games
As the mist moved through me
Like a dream within a dream
When sleep doesn’t come easy.