Amid the *****, wrinkled scales
of cracked and weary bark
a scraggly old line leads down
bereft of any aim,
leads past the mottled brown and gray
where mold becomes a skin,
and winds a canyon’s ****** crag
which tapers towards its end.

Illuminated buds display
the flowers half in bloom,
just sparse enough to show the scar
like shrapnel-wound ingrained.

This spring, the tree bursts white and pink
like many springs before;
the patient scar still growing wider,
softening its edge—
a green-white-pink-brown checkerboard
obscures the many lost
small buds, with dead deep-green tinged shells,
who wobble on their stems
and fall, some landing in the ****
to linger and decay.

Unperturbed traffic marches down
the pleasant four-lane road
as ever, crushing scattered blooms
like victory parades—
the tree remains a safe, clean gap
away, a ten foot spread
on either side between the street
and tree…between the new
facades just built to look ornate
and scar-bedecked old tree.

Yet in the full of summer’s heat
the tree is vibrant green;
the flowers long-since fallen
and in the scar become dirt.