The oaken springtime was rolled upon

the spitting, fitful parchment tongue

of a melodious departure.

The crunchy leaves spouted from the

long-coiled fingertips of the age-old tree,

the very benefactor of this flitting

indiscretion.

Stubborn, mealy bark peeled into

tender, newborn wooden flesh.

And, grasping, bare-fisted

and brazen was a smoke-twisted

scrap of bale-twine.

Weighing the cleanly noose-knotted

entrails of the discarded cord

was the bloated, warm, white, wasted

neck of a newly forgotten country man.

And, underneath lay the crooked field,

in which death smiled with cross-hatched eyes

at the slowing pulse of mine love.