Oak Tea

Some of you won’t have such luck
To grow old, rot, and then die.

Some of you won’t have the grace
To die young in a sad way.

Some of you will rot while young,
Live on frail as a shed leaf,

As a shed leaf that still breathes
Where it lies in the leaf meals

Of the small things that eat leaves,
Lies in leaf bones that don’t breathe,

In leaves that did fall with grace,
Gold or red, or old and brown,

And each spring it’s worth a day
Up high in the scrub oak cliffs

To toe through the flat grey mass
Of damp mats from last fall’s leaves,

To hum with the thought of one
Leaf left in there that still breathes.