Pines
Pine—the tree, that is—grows from a rootthat means to swell, from which we also getthe word fat, and by extensionEire and the Pierian springs, for their fertility.But the pine in to pine for or to pine awaystems from a root to pay for or atonewhich gives us penalty and punish and pain.Somehow two thoughts, on different sidesof a shearing fault of language, have slid togetherand stuck, for our lifetimes, anyway, at the sound pine.It’s not so common, in this practical century,for lovers to pine away, and as our climate warms,pines are retreating higher, but late as it is,anyone sleepless will hear the sound of the windthinning through pines as pained. Maybe at firstthey were a little strange with each other,but it’s natural, now, that pine and pine are pine.Just as, when two who met on a trail one morningare still talking at sunset, something otherthan matching their strides is keeping them together.
