Evergreens

Wherever you go, in the Northwest, you see evergreens. Pines, firs, cedars, spruces, dark outlines against a white cloudy sky. The rest is dismal. Black cement shiny with rain. Bitter cold. Strip malls, barely presentable from the street, and hideous from the sky.

If there is a God above us, why do we make roofs so ugly and front facades so beautiful. Then, I remember. Above the malls. Above the gas stations. Above the dark alleys. Above the apartment buildings. Above everything but the most imposing towers of glass and steel, are the evergreens.

I don't know if God, or Allah, made those evergreens. I don't know when they'll fall. I don't know if it matters. I just know that those evergreens will always be a part of me, and of every Northwesterner. We pray because we want to believe that we too are a part of those evergreens.