Bark

Sometimes when I want to
get out of my head I reach
for a beer and other times
I visit a tree and notice its
thirteen shades of brown and its
Appalachian bark, I see its wounds
and its peels, its twisty bits
and its shiny bits, I find a life lived
in the hot years and the cold years,
the gales, the storms, the droughts.

And I forget myself.