"In the pines" is a song that has been imprinted onto my mind. I might have listened to it when I was in my Nirvana phase, but I have long since surpassed those years, I have no recollection of them. Only recently, with my "blues" phase in full sing, have I again re-encountered with this song.

Through the powerful voice of Fantastic Negrito, I have listened to this song one too many times - if there even is such a thing. The lyrics are imprinted on my mind, and as soon as I found my girl hidden in the pines, I could not listen to the song over and over again, even going back to one of the earlier recordings of this song in the 1940s.

In the pines, in the pines...

The simple words, picked up from the ground like pine needles, strung together to form a unity that somehow transcends the singular parts.

In the pines, in the pines... Where the sun rarely casts her fingers, there my girl my girl lays naked and clothed, happy and mad, an amalgamation of everything and nothing...

In the pines...

I found my girl in the pines, where we danced like forest nymphs while we got high on the turpentine emanating from the pine needles. My girl, the girl who I could not write, lay in the pine needles, scattered like a chaotic mind, trying to find itself after total destruction.

She looked like an angel in plain clothes. She was a destroyer of worlds, yet she could not get up from the claws of the pine needles. In the pine, where the sun don't ever shine, where the mushrooms grow the size of human faces and the insects speak foreign languages, she cried a lie that only I could understand.

But as soon as her voice manifested as a discernable noise, she disappeared into nowhere, behind the shadows of large animals that only the mind could hear. In the pines, where the sun hides from the ugly fate of the soul-devouring power of her gaze, I tried to find my girl...

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She picked forbidden fruits and she fed me with her hands, stinking of pine and mushrooms, making me high on her stench. Hardened fruits, layered between so many different folds, hidden from every single praying eye, she left me yearning for more. Her lies tasted like honey, and the pine nuts replaced the gaping hole that was left in my soul.

She became a forest demon, trapping my soul, tethering it to her like a chain, making me her slave. I could not get rid of the desire to consume her soul as well, but I could not do this, as the pines somehow protected her being from being swallowed, as she devoured mine. In the pines, hidden behind her lies, she became the sun that never dared shine...

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Magic between her fingers, she shaped my soul into a mechanical structure that did her every bidding. I smelled of pine and all I could taste was the mushrooms that grew from the base of the trees surrounding her decaying body. She drowned in the magnificent lies that told, the honey-like taste all that I could smell. And the sun, shining above, but blocked by the pines, could not tell me the truth; I was addicted to the lies.

In the pines, in the pines, she lured me deeper into her layer, into the very burrow where she kept all of her victims, as trophies on display, only to illustrate her power.

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She looked up, only to see the sun, destroying her being, eating her lies, like the souls she feasted on...

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Postscriptum, or All stories come to an end

The lyrics still play in the background. The grungy voice, the youthful ignorance linked with the wisdom of age.

I enjoyed writing these words in conjunction with the lyrics of old playing on in the back of my mind. The pines are magical places. In the pines, we listen to the wind whisper poetry as the pine needles vibrate with the life force of nature. The smell always remind of me of my youth, unlike rosemary which creates a strange nostalgia in me, pine is linked with happy memories.

But the pines are always so silent... Have you ever stood in a pine forest, there is nothing there except the tangible wind blowing through the needles...

It is really a strange place, one brimming with potential, one boiling over with suspense. But always such a creative space.

The girl and I danced like nymphs in the pine forest behind the place we stayed. And we could not resist becoming children again, smelling the pines, listening to the wind, and then photographing each other like models.

I hope that you enjoyed this rendition or instalment of the longest series I have on my page. The girl who I could not write, still ensnaring me with her beauty and elegance. The girl who I could not write, still evading my poetry...

Alas.

Happy photographing and keep well.

All of the writings and musings are my own, albeit inspired by the girl who I could not write, and the song that plays on repeat in my mind (which I also hyperlinked). The photographs are also my own, taken with my Nikon D300 and Nikkor 50mm lens.