What Pockets are For
One of life’s greatest adventures is being asked by a
three-year-old to go out into the backyard.
On this day, winter had returned after a brief peek at spring, so the patchwork
of snow that was left after three days of melt today was hard and icy. But there was enough of the yard exposed so
that there were treasures to be found.
First, there was a search under the big white pine. We had been out under this tree in October
when the big pine was shedding some of its needles. It’s called an evergreen, and it is true that
the tree is mostly green. But twice each
year – in the autumn and in late spring, some of the needles will turn yellow
and fall. Pine needles don’t float like
the sail-like leaves of the maple; they drop straight down and form a thick prickly
carpet that helps to smother any competition the pine may have. We can hear the pine needles crunch as we
step on them. A few of the pine needles
are stuffed inside a pants pocket.
This day there were also pine cones to be found. The cone itself was a wonder, all of the
scales now extended out, each of them brown but with edges tipped in
white. The tree stands a full fifty feet
high now, so these female cones are cones are at least eight inches long. These will have to go in one of the bigger jacket
pockets.
Alongside the little wall made up of flat limestones
piled on top of each other there are a few stones that a frost heave has tipped
over. Stopping to restack them, we see
that one of them has the imprint of a snail made tens of thousands of years ago
when this whole area was part of an ocean.
I go back to my car and fetch a small piece of paper and a pen. We make an impression of the snail shell and
put the rock back in the wall. The
little piece of paper gets folded enough to fit into the other pants pocket.
Beneath the big maple tree, we find some of last
autumn’s leaves. They are intact, but brittle and fragile. The little one tries to put one in her other
jacket pocket but it shatters. Some of
the brown shards make it into the fleece pocket, but most of them stick to our
mittens. We rub our hands together and
they turn to dust and we can clean our mittens by clapping them together. It’s hard to keep a spring maple leaf.
Here’s a couple of acorns that the squirrels missed last
November. Then the snow came and hid
them until today. One goes in the
pocket, but the others we’ll leave behind for the squirrels and blue jays to finally
find. These are pretty bitter tasting,
but they will be a welcome meal until the tree buds begin to plump.
The March wind has chilled us now. It’s time to go back inside and show Grandma,
mom, and dad what we found. Each
treasure is its own story, and bringing home stories is what pockets are for.
His Peace <><
Deacon Dan
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