A pine cone is like all of those numbered boxes
in the post office, only they’ve been jury-rigged to burst open
like a jack-in-the-box and spew their letters everywhere.
The letters are not ordinary letters – they are the letters
that God wrote, all of them stamped “Addressee Unknown.”
That’s God’s name for us, because we did not leave
a forwarding address. But He’s sending them anyways –
overnight, special delivery. The envelopes are winged,
so there’s nowhere they cannot drift …
Poem, in its entirety, is available in the printed version of the current issue.
Bio:
Richard Schiffman is an environmental reporter, a poet, and the author of two biographies. His poems have appeared on the BBC and NPR as well as in numerous publications. His first poetry collection, What the Dust Doesn’t Know, was published in 2017 by Salmon Poetry. He lives and works in New York City.