High winds. I press an ear
to the trunk of a ridge-top oak
and hear nothing but wind.
My footprints in the snow
are more than erased;
they’re raised up, scattered like ashes.
The woodpecker must hear any sound
an oak can make.
It taps out a response.
The sound of porcupine teeth
in the oak’s crown,
as lethal as mistletoe.
Ahead of me on the path,
the tracks of three deer
braiding and unbraiding.
I reach inside my coat
and find a twig. It’s happening
sooner than I thought.
December night. Meteors streak
through the bare crowns of oaks.
I watch the sky as if it were the sleeping face of a dreamer.
All that blazing action without a sound!
And the longer I look, the more unfamiliar it becomes,
wholly itself & yet possessed. Wild. Vulnerable.
I want to be present the way an oak is present
& stretch empty arms into the void.
A rock raised up
by the roots of
a wind-thrown oak—
nothing unusual,
just a dark red
chunk of bedrock
gripped by a trio
of roots with black
cracked bark—
I saw it had been
washed clean by
who knows how
many storms & still
held aloft, as if in
some parting gesture
toward the celestial
Incidental planet, Biblical
metonym for bitterness,
a green anti-fruit filled with air
in citrus-like sections
& harboring a larva at its core.
The oak’s response to a bit
of foreign matter is not
unlike the oyster’s: wall it off
inside a solid tear-drop.
Come fall, it turns red
but doesn’t rot, lapsing instead
into tough brown paper,
a manuscript in the round
that whelps a wasp.
Together we were rockets and roller coasters,
We spiraled and loop-de-looped into space,
Where the sky was the color of octopus ink,
And Earth was so small, so insignificant,
Compared to us both.
Together we were jesters and jokers,
We laughed and drank too much liquor
Too much that we sleep through ringing
Of our reverberating thoughts,
And woke up content.
Together we were dancers and dreamers,
Our hearts beating to the same soothing breeze.
We fantasized under the old oak tree,
Where the stars blossomed and sent promises,
Of forever and always.
Together we were happy,
I was a boy when I first climbed the Oak,
Whose branches were so vast
They seemed to stretch out for hundreds
Of feet in all directions
Whose limbs reached and searched,
Groping for the touch of the other trees
Even though the other trees shrank away from it's majestic size
There was a barrier that I wanted to tear down
So that I might see why the other trees
Would want to withhold their leaves from the Oak
And as I struggled to climb,
Scraping my shins and tearing away the skin
From the tips of my fingers
I also found that I could dissolve my self-doubt
I reached the top at sunset
And I discovered not God
Eyes closed breathing deeply
This is it i tell myself
I open my mouth to speak
These are the words that come out
Hand in hand we walk together
The stars light the night
Imagine us together again
Eating under the big oak tree
Laughing at my not so funny jokes
Remember the time we stole your moms keys
And took a ride to the park
Just so we could get on the swings
Or the time i lost my favorite t-shirt
You bought me a new one so i would have to
When you broke up with your girlfriend
I was there to comfort you
I shall live to be old, who feared I should die young,
I shall live to be old,
I shall cling to life as the leaves to the creaking oak
In the rustle of falling snow and the cold.
The other trees let loose their leaves on the air
In their russet and red,
I have lived long enough to wonder which is the best,
And to envy sometimes the way of the early dead.
The oak-tree in front of my house
Smells different every morning.
Sometimes it smells fresh and wise
Like my mother’s hair.
Sometimes it stands ashamed
Because it doesn’t own the smell
It borrowed from our flower-garden.
Sometimes it has a windy smell,
As though it had come back from a long walk.
The oak-tree in front of my house
Has different smells, like grown up people.
My doll hides behind her pink cheeks,
So that you can’t see when she moves,
But it doesn’t matter because
She always moves when no one is looking,
And that is why people think she is still.
Hoar mistletoe
Hangs in clumps
To the twisted boughs
Of this lonely tree.
Beneath its roots I often thought treasure was buried:
For the roots had enclosed a circle.
But when I dug beneath them,
I could only find great black ants
That attacked my hands.
When at night I have the nightmare,
I always see the eyes of ants
Swarming from a mouldering box of gold.
There are three ancient oaks,
That grow near to each other.
They lift their branches
High as beckoning
With outstretched arms,
For some one to come and stand
Under the canopy of their leaves.
Once long ago I remember
As I lay in the very centre,
Between them:
A rotten branch suddenly fell
Near to me.
I will not go back to those oaks:
Their branches are too black for my liking.