I Am An Oak Tree.
November 4, 2010
I am an oak tree.
Anchored and foreboding;
Protective and growing.
Drawing my strength from the soil, the earth.
Reaching ever further with blossoms and new birth.
With small, seeded fingers towards the sun, the sky.
YET
Uncultured and coarse;
Bending into a force.
Tormented by whispers and weather and wind,
The biting, inciting termites within
That threaten my health and growth and worth.
I am the air.
With guts and with gust;
Romantic, robust.
Hushing your candle, tousling your hair;
Rushing and whistling and dancing with flair
For attention or understanding or any sign that I’m not invisible after all.
The air in your lungs.
The quiet of a breeze, the function of a breath,
The momentary redundancies swallowed in death,
The oxygen that feeds and bleeds our hearts but is quickly forgotten, if ever noticed in the first place.
I am the ocean.
Broad horizon, unseen depth;
Light and dark and flow and ebb.
Crashing against you, then drawing you back
To play and discover and recover the slack
Of the life yet unknown, unnoticed, unnamed.
YET
Murky and moving;
Complex and confusing.
The salt in your wound and the shark in your midst
And the current that demands a reaction, a risk;
A reminder of what matters most when everything is at stake.
