This Mighty Oak

you raise a brow at me when 
one of your catbirds graces the locusts 
with his verbal presents; he rhymes in threes.

i count you among bloodroots. it is perfect math. 
there can only ever be so many.  you kneel to free
a cuff which has got caught up in garlic mustard.
you are  always somewhere i would like to be.  

sun bleeds on stalks of black raspberry, 
and its thousand little pricks which stay 
my legs, and tangles with my hair
so good, ive got to bend low, to free them
before this mighty oak which does not bend. 

her shadow rather fills in deep trenches
of the ash trees bark new lichen
clads near as scantily as my hand
does your main stem, when it
really blooms.