Old Riverside Oak

Athens, Georgia

April 3, 2010

It was early March then,

a year and eternity past,

we brought Dad home.

From his old blue chair

he peered through new

windows, not his own

as snow blankets froze

our Southern woodland

into hard white silence

and gray flows flooded

the shallow river shoals

with an icy hush.

Do you remember

that dark night’s cold

when bitter winds descended

from bleak polar plains,

showering limbs and ice

over frozen foundations

of our beleaguered home?

Powerless, huddled

in a house leaking warmth

we covered this fragile,

this gentle-souled man

with blankets and love.

Strong against the night,

but in strength unavailing

over softening banks,

the old riverside oak

surrendered itself to swirling gray

and lodged in downstream shallows.

A year now it’s been, a year

of great loss, a year nurturing

       growth, and senescence

and the canopy fills again

closing gaps with lacy green

       softening the void

now filled with light, but

still, the void.

Springtime truth emerges

       from emptiness

with whispers of hope.

Mortal life, though dust

is forever redeemed           

for we function within

       a greater whole

which cannot quite be

resolved in the fun-house
                     mirrors

       of our dim perception.

So we see now in part

but miss the unity beyond

that surrounds the void

       in a cosmic embrace

apprehended, if at all

in a place beyond words

expressed in the silence

that speaks to the heart.

The old oak, which served the sky

still provides structure.

On trunk and limb

where hawk pairs nested

mud turtles bask

gleaming in bright sun

       over fresh spring flow.