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
vision.
Winter is the predator of the solstice
undermining the uncertainty of spring.
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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Written on May 07, 2022
Submitted by poetiklysence on August 24, 2023
- 1:12 min read
- 57 Views
Quick analysis:
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 |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,194 |
Words | 240 |
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 |
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"OAK" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/168290/oak>.
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