First light after the eight minute journey from blazing sun

bathes the pine tree in early morning, and I think how odd

the still-alive-but-dying tree welcomes it, basks in it, and

goes on about it’s business of keeping life alive on earth

even as it dries and hardens, getting ready to fall dead

onto the forest floor spreading the cones with new life

into damp moss and under blooming rhodendron shrubs.

The pine is testimony to the persistence of will to live.

All the younger suppler saplings and graceful adults

put on a few cones... spaced far apart on vibrant limbs;

but the old dying pine in a surge of procreative energy

covers all its upper limbs with clusters of seed cones

investing the very last burst of her energy to ensure life

will sprout from some so she will be alive in them.

Then for more panorama shots… with the iPhone… abound the Mendocino