Oak

We lived in a house that had a giant oak in front and I would stare at it in winter and wonder what it was thinking.

We'll wait, capricious sky and I 
under solstice cold and starlight new

while snow now presses down its hands
to wrap the roots that hold me, too

while geese that called the dawn to rush
now sleep in lusher, warmer nights

and horses click their hooves in stalls
and shudder off December's night.

Now all my branches stretch the air
in opalescent freezing dawn

my bark is iron more than skin
to hold my spring-heart deep and long.

The sky is vast, its roots span age
much more, much more than I have known

and dark within its winter night
is longing for itself alone.

I ache for turnings in the sky
that tell me that the test is done

and bring to me the dearer stars,
and waking bird song, longing sun.

And so we wait in winter's hold
together, though we do not speak

of all that I have seen and dreamed
beyond the loss of light and leaf.