Quercus Alba

where are you now

far perhaps

from the lonely acres

of abandoned meadow

in the foothills

tree herder

imagining the future

in the few remaining moments

the breadth the height

this sapling might attain

in the next century

or the century after that

standing tall and strong

when everything else

had gone to soil

dirty and tired

you wonder about

the possibilities embedded

in today’s planted fragments

a massive trunk

raising limbs that

brush the sky

an empty space

where embodied grace

was felled

you see

herds of does

and fawns

not yet conceived

surviving frozen winters

fattened on its acorns

fallen in abundance

to the ground

a royal stag

sniffing the wind

in autumn

for a whiff

of danger

or of death

generations upon

generations

of bowmen

hunters

standing at a short

distance waiting

for what might

walk out

from its blue shadows

bending

eventually

one by one

to the curve

of the earth’s

long arc

birds

of your dreams

stopping nesting

flying on

their songs

left behind

in leaves

rustling

on branches

swaying in the cold

it is the last root ball

packed in clay

ever you’ll drop

in the wound

of open earth

the leaning salt box

in which you languished

in those last years alone

abandoned collapsed

in a summer storm

illness by then

set deep in

your bones

your body retiring

early your thoughts

drifting daily to

a few remaining friends

scattering ashes

on the ground

disappearing with

the rain into young

grasping roots