Skip to content

The book The House of the World has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and is now available on Amazon.

The New Oak Sapling

The tree is sleeping,
my sapling tree,
where two trees died
in the rainless hurricane of Ike.
Thin as a blade.
Mary and I selected it among orphans.
Spindly oak.
Now it is resting in the bedroom of the winter.
In its new home of permanent horizon.
The barrenness is beckoning
to hold a child.
A new tree spirit.

I imagine its first buds,
its new leaves,
the longing we have for shade again.
A place to put the pools for the boys.
To sit and dream between
the afternoon and evening of life
and watch our new child grow.
The atoms of youth uniting
with the open arms of the day,
come spring when it’s awakening
reaches to the mothering sky.
A member of our family.

Published inIndex of all Poems