Ten Ways of Looking at an Oak Tree

Ten Ways of Looking at an Oak Tree 

Lily Winship 

I 

There it stood among the rest

A fist of bark punching the sky, reaching for something more 

II

In the winter, it was only bones,

A black vein stitched across a white sky,

I am dry. I am empty

III

In spring, it loosened

Green whispers unfolding from clenched teeth

Each leaf a small decision to live again 

IV

By summer, it was a shadow 

A long-forgotten piece of wood

Light caught in its stained-glass peepholes 

Children kneeling in its shade like tree frogs  

V

Wind made me free

Branches spoke in a language of creaks and hush

Translating weather into music 

VI 

An acorn fell

A single knock against the earth,

A promise disguised as something small

VII

Lightning once split its shoulder,

Not large enough to make it fall, 

But enough to leave little white lines along my wrist

Running from rib to root

Yet it kept standing, unashamed of survival 

VIII

Ants mapped their continents 

Crawling along my bark skin 

Knowing the oak only as terrain, not symbol

IX

Scars trace over my body like roots from a tree

Bending in perfectly imperfect ways 

You tell me I am strong

But I sway the second a breeze comes by

X

I am a scarred and charred battlefield 

Begging for one second of rain