These Pine Trees

It is a hot summer day along Sixth Street. I am hungry and in search of food. But outside Miller Blueprint, I stop and wonder.

How long have these pine trees been here? Their trunks fill the meager gap between the sidewalk and the curb. Their needles lay strewn on the ground and in the street. The tiny patch of dirt belongs to them (for now).

The trees lean away from the concrete of the sidewalk and the walls of the building immediately to the south. They lean to the north, out over the pavement of the street, over the rushing traffic, over pedestrians walking by, reaching up to the sky that they might have just a little more sun.

I gaze at the brown pine needles at my feet. I reach out to touch the rough bark of the trunks. I follow their arcs into the sky. I see their green needles shining in the bright light of this cloudless summer day.

And then...

And then, the smell of Hut's hamburgers lures me on.

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