Almost every line of Mary F. C. Pratt's poem begins with the same small word, "For", and that word does a lot of work. It means "because", but the poem never says what the because is attached to. The title, "I consider the oak", supplies the only hint: the oak is worth considering, and the lines that follow are the reasons. The form echoes the old tradition of the praise-litany. The title and the "For" pattern also recall Christopher Smart's "Jubilate Agno", where lines open with "For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry". That is an inference from the wording, but the family resemblance is hard to miss. Pratt turns that method of loving attention on a tree.
The poem has no rhyme and no regular metre. Its rhythm comes from repetition and from lists. The first stanza opens with the oak's wood, "golden and strong", and moves quickly through what it becomes: "houses and ships, / cradles and caskets and casks." The hard c-sounds make that line clatter like a workshop, and the objects quietly span a human life, from the cradle to the casket. The oak is there at the beginning and the end. Even the verb in "the people share her abundant fruit" matters. People are not the owners of the harvest. They are one set of guests among many.
The second stanza proves this by widening the guest list: "squirrel and chipmunk, / jay, turkey, deer, woodrat and mouse, / woodpecker, pigeon, pig." The list is deliberately unruly, running from tiny to large and from the air to the ground. It ends on "pigeon, pig", a pair that bumps together with a slightly comic thud. After that the poem slows down for one sentence of shelter, where hollows hold "bee and owl". Where the lists sprawl, this line is quiet and compact.
The third stanza turns from what the oak gives to what the oak is. Its images move through the year: "Spring candles glow yellow", which I take to be the oak's new flowers, then "Lammas shoots" in pink, the late-summer flush of growth. Then comes shade, the rattle of autumn leaves, and a "winter shape" that bears "the weight of snow". The roots "tap deep" and the twig tips "cluster", so the tree is seen from underground to the tips of its branches. Notice that in this stanza the appeal is partly aesthetic. The winter shape is "pleasing", and the poem allows itself to enjoy the tree as well as use it.
The final stanza changes register. Folklore enters: the oak "carries the mistletoe / and casts away the curse"; a leaf "shelters" and an acorn on the sill "protects". The oak has become a guardian as well as a provider. Then the tone darkens, and this is where the poem becomes most interesting. The oak "draws the lightning / and carries its mark", and it is "knotted by the bitter gall". These lines admit that the tree is wounded, and the wounds show. The poem does not hide them, and it presents them as part of the tree's character. The last two lines make this explicit: "For she does not bow to the storm. / For her bent boughs send up straight shoots." The final image is the strongest. Damage does not end the tree. It becomes the place where new, straight growth begins.
The personification of the oak as "she" gathers all this together. She provides cradles, feeds the forest, shelters the owl, and guards the house, so she is a figure of mothering generosity. She also endures lightning and storm without bowing, so she is a figure of strength. The poem suggests that these qualities belong together: the one who gives most freely is also the one who survives.
What makes the poem worth reading is how much it does with plain materials. It uses simple declarative sentences, a single repeated word, and a catalogue of nouns. Yet it moves from economy to ecology to the seasons to legend, and ends with an idea about resilience that reaches well beyond trees. It never states its conclusion, because its grammar leaves every sentence open, as though the reasons could go on indefinitely. That openness is a large part of its charm.