I knew where they were, beneath the spreading limbs 

of the towering pine, among the fallen cones,

though when I thought to look, 

I couldn’t find them, 

thought it odd 

the older folks didn’t know.

It was too awful to imagine— them cold and hungry or dead, 

snatched or vanishing slowly, absorbed into the humus.

Instead, I thought of fidgety babies, diapered, feet kicking, 

on a bed of soft needles, waiting to be picked up.