A PINE IN THE CITY, ALONE WITH A BOY 5

From where I sit on the back yard steps, I can see a pine tree we left behind after we first bought our house. There were four others, but they’d grown so close together, we had to have them cut down as they were killing each other as they competed for soil space, water and sunlight.

Where we live, at the intersection of Great Plains, Deciduous Forest, and Coniferous Forest, there’s a wild mix of trees and grassland. But what would happen if you went further south? What would happen if a migrating bird dropped a seed of, say, a Jack Pine in Oklahoma City? What if a little boy, from a near-destitute white family, discovered it, found out about it, nurtured it…and that’s what this is about.

The pine alone could grow no more.

The soil around it was the wrong kind.

It was missing something the pine needed.

It was missing the sour taste of home.

Image: http://www.featurepics.com/FI/Thumb300/20070710/Abstract-Lodgepole-Pine-Needles-374903.jpg