SUNDAY, DECEMBER 28TREES CONDUCT THE EYE from the ground up to the heavens, link the detailed temporariness of life with the bulging blue abstraction overhead. . . . They alone unite the earth and the sky - - - the known, invadable world with everything that is beyond our grasp and our power.

DIANE ACKERMAN, from A Natural History of the Senses...And I noticed that the humble pineapple in our fruit basket, which can never explode into the sky the way the palm tree does, has its own spectacular statement of being.