Analysis of OAK
Frost covered skeletal arms,
hang low in resignation.
Unforgiving brittle bones of
my grandmother’s formidable oak
allows for the dominance of the sun to
steal its glory.
Barren from bended bondage
bare leaves summon other lives,
to reconstruct their birthing.
Dampened warmth lies beneath the
mossy surface soil of intertwining tendrils
as the oak roots breathe a history.
Sixty, of your seventy-foot frame shadows
secrets that hide the ghosts of summer
where dreams and dying linger on. Time can
be still and thick and transparent in the dark,
to a majestic and ripe
symbolic shapeshifter. the veins in your leaves
give away your truth.
suspended by the heavy acorns that nurture
as the branches in this southern quake
arc the ground with the weight of human limbs.
my mother remembers the murderous sight.
frozen now. wounded by the icy corset that grips,
your frame is vulnerable and unassuming.
under the deep lies the future. underneath the deep
the past is surrendered.
Root and vein and water and blood
combine to declare the oak, a glorious
Winter is the predator of the solstice
undermining the uncertainty of spring.
Scheme | A X X X X B X X C X A B X D X X X X X D X X X X C X X X X X C |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1101001 110010 00101011 11010001 01101001011 1110 1011010 1110101 101110 1011010 110111001 101110100 1011100111 101101110 1101010111 11010010001 1001001 010101011 10111 010101010110 101001101 1011011101 11001001001 1011010101011 11110000010 100110100101 011010 10101001 10101010100 10101001010 1000010011 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,194 |
Words | 240 |
Sentences | 16 |
Stanzas | 31 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1 |
Lines Amount | 31 |
Letters per line (avg) | 30 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 30 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 6 |
About this poem
I wrote this for my mother. Born in the south in 1930, her earliest memories are of the trees she once loved.
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"OAK" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/168290/oak>.
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