The old oak finally fell.
He grew just inside the wood line
so he hurt nothing,
no ones deck or porch,
no telephone wires,
no chipped stone chimney.
He just gave up and came down.
Only a few accommodating neighbors
witnessed and sighed:
a dozen oaks of similar antiquity,
two or three chipmunks,
indirectly, maybe, God.
And, after the fall,
me, on an autumnal stroll.
I had been commiserating
with his plight,
slowly sagging, leaning
further and further off his
plum line to the sky.
Just another brother
of the same Mother
preparing to die.
It’s all right though.
After a few seasons snow,
his off spring will grow,
rising around his plot,
fed by his rot.