Showing posts with label oak. Show all posts
Showing posts with label oak. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 16, 2019

Briefly Borrowed

It’s a lay me down wind.

Pruned by providence on other days
An old oak has fallen in the forest
Once a tower of leaf and trunk
Now resting in a bed of ferns and moss.

Its day has come
A wind too strong
Roars high above out of the north
First limbs bowed before the storm
Then roots yielded their groaning- grip
And dropped it with a snap and boom
Full circle it is now earthly bound.

And when my wind comes
On another day
I wish that if it please the fates
That I may rest upon such a bed
Of greens and sod
Of duff and rock
And so gently return
And thankful for
This life I’ve briefly borrowed.





Wednesday, December 21, 2016

Solstice Oak

Two men are felling an oak tree nearby
And the rooster tail of wood dust                                                                                          
Grinding from their saws
Is showering us in spirits.
Piece by piece
They deliver them,
Back before acorn and leaf,
Forward into the ether.
And drop them down
Bark and limb
Onto the waiting earth,
Weaving them again
Into the web,
Sending them onward
In a succession of forms,
Seeking the essential unifying light
Hard found on this
The darkest day of the year.