PINE CONE REGROWN

A new generation of lodgepole pines rises in a burned-over forest.

“Peering down / on the beings below,” Boxer writes anthropomorphically, a pine cone hangs for 40 years out of harm’s way, until a wildfire’s heat melts the resin that glues it together, and seeds are released to shower down to the ash-covered ground. “It wasn’t an end,” she concludes. “From the fire, / life / unfolds. / Green / and new / and ready / to begin.” As she explains in a reflective afterword, lodgepole pines are just one of several fire-dependent types of flora and fauna, reminding readers that we find our strength through adversity; like that pine cone, “we might find we were made for this very moment.” In the illustrations, small woodland creatures nest in branches or browse beneath them until a red tide of flames sweeps in. A season or so later, the ground is green again, and in a final scene, the smiling animals are back, going about their business amid piney seedlings. As a very basic introduction to serotinous trees (that is, those that can delay reproducing until certain specified conditions are met), this will do. But she uses the term serotinous without fully defining it; to judge from that rather oblique closing note, the author seems to have something more metaphorical in mind anyway. Even older audiences may be left wondering just what “moment” she means, though.

Narrowly focused until the end and then suddenly too wide.