Strobilus
( seed cone )

January presses hard and my tears well up
like the drupaceous over-ripe fruit
on the young trees my husband planted
by the back fence long ago.
How we savored those peaches,
and the almonds and the nectarines.

I’ve walked this trail along the American River
many times, but today I feel the need
to stop by the old oracle oak that knows me,
speaks to me.  About God and all the complicated
things I think God means for me to understand.
A cold wind rustles dead leaves.  The sedge
and tule bow, dip their faces into the water
at the riverbank where I stand on a clump of dirt
and stretch until I can see through the naked twigs
of the river birch into the backyard of the house
where those peaches grow and where a cold dark
came up unexpectedly and peeled away the bark
of our family, tore pink fissures into its skin
and carried away on papery flakes the laughter
of two small boys. 

The fruit trees are fuller, taller I notice, still
in the backyard.  I hope the current owners
tend them well, enjoy the intervals of fruit. 
I begin walking again and think of my sons,
men now, their families rising like coniferous
growth rings out of our family.  I pick up a strobile
and notice the spikes on this firm round cone,
how sharp they are and how the protective bracts
are overlapping…like love, almost.