What do we have and when must we give it away?

Ask the oak that stands by the vineyard

Two limbs, only one in leaf

The other bare, perhaps dead

Maybe its life has been pushed down where we can no longer see

Or maybe it’s gone to the survivor who carries on season

By season

Escaping fires which fall down hills,

Eat through cultivated rows

Now it grants the flickers a home

Their red heads catch the eye, don’t they?

Make us marvel, long for swiftness and flight

In a place where the living take hold from below

What do we have and when must we give it away?

Ask the oak that stands by the vineyard

Two limbs, only one in leaf

The other bare, perhaps dead

Maybe its life has been pushed down where we can no longer see

Or maybe it’s gone to the survivor who carries on season

By season

Escaping fires which fall down hills,

Eat through cultivated rows

Now it grants the flickers a home

Their red heads catch the eye, don’t they?

Make us marvel, long for swiftness and flight

In a place where the living take hold from below