Like every good magnolia seed pod, I had my start as a fat bud, soft as baby skin, that blossomed into a huge, creamy white, fragrant flower, beckoning to all the little birds and bumblebees. And then I faded, dropping my pretty petals one by one, to bear my fruit. How surprising the fruit was when it opened its coy, pink chambers to release bright, beautiful treasures! Now here I am just beginning to dry on the tree, red jewels still clinging. I’ll be here for awhile, as long as I can, but at some point I will drop to the ground. At some point in the future, far, but not too far, from now, I will lie empty with the rest of this year’s detritus. (Underneath, in the shadows of the lowest branches, can be found a heap of older debris, last year’s and the year’s before and some older than that, going little by little to dust.) Which is most beautiful, they seem to ask, the wedding-white petals or the surprising red seeds or the dried-up dignity of what once gave life?
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