A Pineapple Dream from Long Ago

’Twas the night before dreaming, when quiet had grown,
And I pulled down a book from an old family shelf of my own.
I was fifty-five now, with gray in the years,
When a yellowed old paper slipped loose from its tears.

It fluttered down softly, so brittle and light,
Like a message saved up for one wintery night.
A pineapple guide, from a long-ago hand,
With drawings and notes from a far warmer land.

I held it and smiled, for I knew right away
Whose book it had slept in through year after day.
My grandmother saved it, tucked safely inside,
A small folded secret that time tried to hide.

It spoke of a pineapple, patient and slow,
Of warmth by a window, of learning to grow.
“It doesn’t happen overnight,” it seemed to say,
“It happens through nights as they pass on their way.”

Seven hundred and eighty, give or take a few more,
Before fruit might appear like a prize at the door.
I read it once more by the lamp’s gentle gleam,
Then drifted to sleep and slipped into a dream.

’Twas a night long ago, in a house full of snow,
Where the upstate winds whispered and wood fires would glow.
The boots by the doorway were drying with care,
And the scent of split maple hung warm in the air.

The windows were silver with frost at the seam,
And the whole little house was wrapped up in a dream.
The stove in the corner gave crackle and light,
Turning winter to amber on that cold country night.

The kettle was humming. The floorboards would creak.
The walls held the smoke of each long snowy week.
And there by the warmth where the orange flames shone,
Sat a plant with a crown in a pot of its own.

Not cactus, not orchid, not ivy, not fern,
But something much stranger that made a child turn.
Its leaves were sharp green, like a tropical flame,
So I pointed and asked my grandmother its name.

She looked from her work with that practical grace,
That soft knowing smile on her grandmother face.
“That there is a pineapple,” she said, plain and true,
As if pineapples by wood stoves were nothing brand new.

A pineapple? Here? In the cold and the snow?
Where the north wind blew hard and the wood embers glowed?
Where mittens hung limp and the mornings were white?
Where the stars froze like sugar in the dark winter night?

But grandmothers know things that children don’t know.
They know roots can take hold where the warm pockets grow.
They know scraps are not scraps if you give them a start.
They know some kinds of magic look mostly like art.

She had saved the green crown when the sweet fruit was through,
Trimmed it and turned it toward something brand new.
Most folks would have tossed it, the meal being done,
But she saw a future where others saw none.

She tucked it in soil with a wink of belief,
And set it near warmth like a tropical leaf.
Not too much water, not too much heat,
Just enough care near the stove at her feet.

The Christmas cactus nodded. The orchids leaned near.
The avocado pit rooted in water so clear.
The windows said winter. The stove answered spring.
And the pineapple sat like a crowned little king.

Then softly the room seemed to shimmer and sway,
And my younger self entered from far yesterday.
He looked at the plant, then looked up at me,
With the same wondering eyes I remembered to see.

“What is it?” he asked, though I already knew.
“It’s the lesson she planted,” I whispered back true.
“It’s proof that an ending may still have a start.
It’s patience in soil. It’s warmth. It’s her heart.

“It’s taking what others might throw clean away,
And giving it light for another new day.
It’s learning that fruit is not always the prize.
Sometimes it’s the wonder that opens your eyes.

“It’s seven hundred nights, and then eighty more,
Of tending what hope leaves beside the door.
It’s growing through winter, through waiting, through care,
Because someone believed it could grow even there.”

Then the stove settled low with a whispering sound,
And the dream folded softly back into the ground.
The cactus stopped nodding. The orchids stood still.
The snow kept its watch on the dark windowsill.

But the child smiled at me in the fire’s low glow,
As if there were things only children can know.
Then he faded like smoke from the stove’s amber light,
And left me alone with that long-ago night.

I woke with the paper still there by my bed,
And the smell of old wood smoke alive in my head.
The guide was just paper, stained yellow and thin,
But somehow my grandmother was folded within.

So save the green crown when the sweet fruit is through.
Set it near warmth. Let it start something new.
Give it some water, some light, and some grace.
Give wonder a corner. Give memory a place.

For some fruits grow slowly, and some lessons do too.
Some wait in old books until they find you.
Some plants feed the body. Some memories feed the child.

And some pineapples grow by the wood stove awhile.

Not for the fruit.

Not for the show.

But to teach a young heart how impossible things grow.