Fingerprints

"Papa, can we have this one?"
The boy's face is radiant.
He feels the needles alive and
breathing softly against his skin.

Papa clears his throat.
"I don't know," he says,
bending to one knee. "See, here?
The broken branches? Someone was
careless."

The boy's hand tightens.
The scent of crushed pine fills the air.
He has no interest
in Scholastics, save where it
explains the laws of Nature.
He holds the branch in his hand,
feeling the life within, savoring the scent of pine,
watching a delicate drop of sap
well from the raw stump.

Papa says, "It looks like it
is weeping."
"No," said the boy. "It is Life -
Life bursting forth."

Papa snaps off a broken branch.
"It's just a tree, son."

"It is a fingerprint," the boy says,
defiant.

These do not sound like
the words, Papa imagines
rolling off the lips of his future son.
"Load her up, then,"
he says, shrugging,
the gravel of disappointment
already turning, like heavy stones.

The boy nods, once,
sharply, dusting his hands on
his jeans.

When he walks by Papa,
there is a scent of pine.
Papa claps him on the shoulder;
grumbling to hide his own surprise.

"You made a good choice, son."

The words resonate. The boy nods,
once. And, for a moment,
he is a bridge.

Papa is surprised, how gently
he shoulders the tree,
and loads it into the truck.
How little it annoys him to find
his hands are warm
and wet with sap.

"Life," he grumbles,
not seeing the small wounds
that will fester,
and break open.

Years later, as a bird - lighting on a branch,
the scent of pine
will trigger a memory.
The sap, sticky, thick as blood,
will forge a bridge.

The memory of a tree
will bring his estranged son home.