The Cork Tree
The phellem oak, that stands alone where the roadbends north, has been debarked- or denuded- from waist down; had it been bare-chested with cork pants on it wouldn’t have been so bad, in Julies everyone around here dresses like that, some wear even less.
Its flesh of is pale and slightly blue, but what can one expect a January day, with hint of snow in the air and a cold wind that brazenly prods its trunk. In five years time the bark will grow back; since the plant lives to be 800 hundred years, a few naked years ain’t that bad.