Purpose fulfilled...home free and basking in afternoon shafts of sunshine piercing dense pine stands, a piece of Eastern Red Cedar (juniperus virginiana) driftwood deposited by summer flooding rests in winter slumber among Loblolly Pine cones—the latter, dressed to the nines. Their bluish patina is a natural decay process indicating fungal activity.
I pause my meander through shoreline woodlands and lend heart and ear to stories of the winter wood, as spun by said pine cones. Their subtle dialog defies the chill breath of Old Man Winter, as they whisper of life in windblown canopies on the Seaforth Peninsula. But they also spill admiration and marvel at the cedar branch's tales of an arduous river cruise. After all, it was severed many miles away by thunderstorm squalls near the headwaters of the mighty Haw River.
Before I head out, the cedar branch gives a parting nudge to my sense of self-discovery. Are we kin, threads of the same cosmic tapestry, made of the same stardust? Behold, it sighs as it touts its shape—a monogram of my last name.
© Ilija Lukić 2026
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