Cork Oaks

That summer
when we lived among the cork groves
the sun fields stretched for miles.

The only sound we heard all day
was the tight-lipped talk of the district logger
and the ragged tear of plank panels
prised like tape from the trees.

Hardly a stopper slipped his catch.

Imagine if you will, he said,
what it must be like
to nestle in the glass neck
of a young-vatted Tempranillo
and inhale the fruit of the vine!

One year in every nine
they do it.  Amazing, you say,
but this is the way Nature intended
   
12 to 15 times.