Oak tree
You are brooding
Exponentially grand and simply looming
At the edge of the yard that lines my childhood home
Fading into the tree-tinted horizon
One with the picture in which you paint
You
Are not a focal point
You are more like a subtle brush stroke easing its way into the foreground
But you don't mind
Oak tree
You are patience
A hundred years have touched your membrane
Stiffening and caking it in
The wrinkles of an old man's skin
Somehow still soft
Somehow still able
To reach into your moss-covered heart
Nestled neatly within your wood
And find the bravery to reach out
With winding branches
Providing the birds a place to nest
The squirrels a home to burrow and
The termites a space to feed
The worms make playgrounds of your roots
Oak tree
You have no eyes
But I know a small part of what you've seen
The burst of spring in the warmth of slanted sunshine
And the near suffocating scent of
Blossoms, seeds, and
Sweet struggling saplings
Life
Death
The stifling absence of birdsong
And presence of snow
Crumbling leaves
Rotting trees
Ice sleek to the touch and the barren shadow
Of being alone
Oak tree
Through all of this
You grow
In pursuit of the sky
You live with the will the pulsates straight up through your roots
And radiates to the end of every one of your golden branches
Oak tree
I can only hope to pick up a fragment of the wisdom you emit
As I ponder your existence
In the shade your glorious leaves provide