Leaving Something Behind

In Memory of Nelson Bentley 

I last saw him pressed against the lectern, 

Surveying the rows of empty seats; 

Their lacquered yellow finish glowing 

Like mowed stalks of summer wheat. 

I thought of the lone oak tree 

That pillared above my father’s field 

Throughout my early fertile years. 

It was the only living thing that reached 

Higher than the chimneys of the houses scattered 

In our bend of the Sacramento River. 

My brother and I would rest in the shade 

Of that valley oak after hours of hoeing 

Weeds in the thirstiest days of July. 

One night a fire broke out in some old wood 

We had stacked under the tree. 

Though it lived, the leaves of limbs forty 

Feet up were curled by the heat and smoke. 

Sometime in the many years after I left home 

I looked to that far corner of the field 

Now undistinguished except for some young 

Cottonwoods struggling through the December winds. 

I never asked what happened to the oak. 

The next time I went to the classroom 

It was new term, the seats full 

Of students waiting to begin.