Oak

I’ve titled this Oak because with five continents growing so many different oaks it would be hard to find a better suited title for so diverse a tree. Oak, by its very name, resounds with a solidity and strength that no other species on earth offers. Ask anyone which species they respect the most and they will universally give “Oak” the accolade above all other species.

Oak

As winter-browned oak leaves hang in deadness to twist and spin upon their axis, I listen from my silent sphere of peace and rest to hear their congregated mass begin to rattle in the gently flowing breezes.

They jostle first one way and then another and then fall silent as I await the next current channelling in from the north. Here I sit alone and silence changes place with tinkling leaves that seem so lifeless when the breezes cease and then again the twisting, twirling, ofttimes dancing leaves begin to entertain me as I wait.

The colours shift as light plays softly on the key of every leaf; I watch the colours change with every breath and listen to the vast expansive range and wonder as I wonder how haphazardly they sing yet form a tune, a melody, a symphony a choreography for me.

The spring, a time that seems so distant from the watery winter’s sun in which I sit, brought forth the warmth, a bursting bud of green unfolding leaves so rich for me to see. Then summer came and hardened what was gentle to my touch as if a sail, wind-filled and stiffly billowed resisted the fall and winter yet to come, but then the chill, of winter tolled its bell.

I watched with my affections the autumn’s change to red and yellow and the richness of the gold that lasts a day and then subsides to the winter night’s freezing finger. Morning comes, no dew is found but frost is bound within these oak-fingered leaves and the suddenness displaces other elements of change and rearranges the keys that play the different notes until the leaves fall beneath the weight of heavy snow.