Big bushy bishop pines in the park,
dignified attendants of the scene,
have always been at home here
wrapped in the cold and the fog
of our seaside city.

But today when the temperature
is an astounding 100 degrees Fahrenheit,
and I’m sweating through my shirt
as I walk by them,
these trees are crackling
like logs on a winter fire.

This can’t be!

Surprise knocks my mind awry, and
okay, I like a good mystery, so count me in.
But before I have a chance
to investigate,
I see all the clues I need,
dozens of them,

tender, tiny glistening whirlybirds,
a shower of seedlets pirouetting,
little cooling fans twirling,
down through the oven-hot midday air,
waking up the sleeping earth
with news of themselves
as they touch down.

And earth and I look up together,
and listen to the diminutive explosions,
as the wooden leaves of pine cones high above
go snapping open
in crown after crown
with the sudden summer
fireworks of birth.