Leafless

Sipping at green tea
from a bottle, I wonder
where tea leaves come from.

Did they sway in sunshine breezes
from trees that overlooked
scurrying groundhogs, leaning into
windy fingers that combed through them, sighing
to the heat on a summer's day?
Sheltering singing children beneath
their collective shade, whispering,
'Once again, laugh for us once again.'

Did they fall in autumn, and
peek out shyly from modest buds
again and again, until song became
silence, and children came no more.
Even the blue jay's nest was empty,
a mess of the very twigs they once
spread their wings from.

And one night, did a young woman come,
pounding her fists against the trunk, the
force of feeble blows reverberating
all the way to their veins. Did they taste
the tang of her tears
in the air, and hear
the name she whispered to herself
even as she stumbled away?

When I sip at the lifeblood of leaves,
I wonder where they came from,
and went.
I wonder if it's the taste of
a child's familiar song that blossoms on my tongue,
the bitterness of passing days and
loneliness recalled
lingering in my throat.
I remember the shaking leaves that whispered,
"Once again, come to us once again,"
their farewell to me as I
left home that night in tears.

Do they remember his name?

--
Typed it as it came.