The Lace Lantern

My claws gently freed the skeleton of a wild winter cherry caught between two black basalt stones. The turn of the season had dissolved its fleshy skin, leaving behind only a delicate cage of pale, veined lace guarding a shriveled scarlet berry within. Kneeling in the quiet loam, I cleared away the wet cedar needles that weighed upon its fragile ribs. With slow deliberation, I wedged the brittle stem upright into a cleft in the rock where the footpath splits in the dark. In the stillness of the woods, the red bead rests inside its lacy sphere, a quiet lantern showing that even what has withered can still mark the way.