This Lace-Bark Pine was planted in the late 1990s. It is still young, as it can live for up to 500 years.
Lace Bark Pine
High on the cold mountains of China,
this Lace Bark Pine learns to endure.
Slowly, patiently, it grows.
Planted in sacred, silent, temple gardens
it can count five hundred years
with rings of presence.
Evergreen needles rise up in threes
towards a thin blue sky.
Its bark gradually flakes
in green, blue, red and grey—
and here, still so young,
it has dotted patterns
like someone gently painted it
with their thumb