Sad Oak

I have stood here

for decades, for centuries.

I have felt that river wrap

her arms around my roots,

around this dirt

and then recoil - curving

and cutting in straight and

crooked lines.

I have watched her children

come and go.  I have watched

the First People - the Lenapi -

plant fish from her banks and feed

off the wild berries that push up

on her shores.  I have watched

the General and his men push

off from her edges and travel

by night to surprise their own

countrymen - foreigners all of them.

I have watched the farmers take

silt from her banks to till into

their crops, learning the craft

of fish planting from the naked ones.

I have watched the new ones

dump hot colored liquid into

her blood and make her cringe -

giving up her harvest of fish.  I

have watched these new ones

tame her and prod her with

concrete and asphalt, thinking

they could persuade her from

the rising she does with such pleasure

and rhythm.  I have watched

as the people have forgotten to

make offerings to her - asking

her blessing; forgetting to enter

her with love and abandon.

The turkeys, they have pulled back.

The deer have all but stopped coming.

The naked ones are gone altogether.

What will happen to her?

Of late, she does not smile

when I throw my acorns to her and

drop my leaves on her.  She used to

laugh when I tickled her with my

colored and dying hair.  Now she is silent

and I fear for what will come next.

My roots - my own roots - who have

clung so simply to the dirt that is

her banks, have soured.  Pieces of

me die as I drink her poisoned draught.

I am dying from her, from the one

who has been my life, my sweetness,

my health.  I am dying from her waters.

That she does not talk to me

has made me sad.  Where has she gone?

What has become of my thunderously

tender Delaware?  Why does she

get so very bone dry?  Why does

she not laugh as she lifts the debris

of life, carrying it to another place,

to another people?

I miss this woman, so strong

and so soft.  I miss the caresses

she gave me.  Her silence has

deafened me and I do not

care if I go on to see another people.

I do not care if I grow another limb.

Her silence has made me still.  And,

it is not the stillness I enjoyed after our

sister wind had forced me to swing and

dance and clamber.  It is the stillness

of being ill.

I have watched so much.  I have

watched too much.  I too must grow

silent, grow still, grow sick

and die.  My time has come and

I am sad.  I do still hope

that the naked ones will return.  I do

still hope that someone gains their wits

and cleans up her banks and makes her

waters pure to drink – again.