of wood

Scrape away layers
in ringlets
and revel in the hue of red,
read between the lines
of winter
years of drought and rain.
Hundreds pass in inches
beneath the plane.

Fain we forget
or become illiterate,
unknowing paint new barriers
over the grains
of history,
pave ourselves instead
into prisons of present-tense.

Or fain we recall mere tables trees,
when forested, fade
the streets and parking lots.

I understand
your passion for wood.

After all
the splinters cut and pullings-off
of bandaids
show we too are red.