I was delighted to discover in Gresham, right across the street from a coffee house I like, one of the largest California black oaks I have ever encountered. Here I like to lean against its dark gray trunk and practice my bansuri flutes, even in the cold as my fingers numb and my lip splits. I feel a connection with this particular tree, as I do with all black oaks, so I don’t mind the sacrifice.
Sacrifice
a cold spring breeze
splits my lower lip
quietly so as not to disturb
the wind in the wood
this song is past memory
it fills an asphalt space
between tall cracked walls
calling out the leaves
my body begins to tremble
against the broad high trunk
which holds up the night
the wind falls hush
in the halogen light
tiny oak leaves quiver
and i notice now the blood
smeared on the hollow reed
Great poem! Love the imagery.