The Sand Hill Review http://www.sandhillreview.org 2005

The Longing of Oak Trees

Without disturbing the bushtits’ sleep, toothed leaves

saw through fog’s low ceiling into the orange glow

of morning. The oak shakes off the night, its yellow

catkins woozy with ejaculations, powdery waves

of pollen drifting onto dozing squirrels, those thieves

dreaming of cups plump with nuts. The oak billows

its canopy against the day’s heat, gives a hollow groan

only the crows hear. They know how the oak craves

to leave this hill, to tangle roots with another beech,

how it longs to spiral through cirrus clouds, to touch

that blue. They’ve seen the titmice and jays its brown

litter buries, watched it welcome mistletoe’s ravening reach

beneath its bark. They know the quiet weariness of such

wood, how after centuries of standing the oak longs to lie down.

Mary Petrosky