One Oak
June 30, 2011
THE Rev. James Jackson writes:
With the beautiful paintings you’ve been posting lately, I thought you might enjoy this poem.
TO AN OAK TREE
— E.C. Wells
Three hundred changing summers, winters too,
Since first the quivering sapling struggled through,
A hundred thousand days since you were born,
And took to earth from out the green acorn.
Survived the pounding hoof and rooting pig,
Put out first fragile arms, and then the big.
Two hundred years ago you firmly stood,
In promise rich as any in the wood,
Before your brothers in the claim to space,
With root and leaf creating your own place,
Had heard the thunder roar and breezes sing,
And from the storm given shelter to a king.
The next two hundred years had passed you by,
To find you yet fit neighbor to the sky,
And all man’s need of ship, and church, and fire,
Had not assailed your own tremendous spire,
Which year by year from sap to solid core,
Unseen, unheard, took on a little more.
But nigh four thousand scintillating moons,
Three hundred Christmases, three hundred Junes
Have gone for nought and ever you must kneel
Before this artisan with bitter steel,
And to the sun and air lose acids raw,
Until the log is fit to meet the saw.
Till now beneath the softly-singing plane,
Your lustrous boards give up the secret grain,
And let the tiger-stripe medullar shine,
Across your straight and sturdy growing line,
And he who works with every shaving hears
How you grew into glory with the years.
And was it only evolution’s twist,
That man and timber came to co-exist?
Or did some greater mind regard that seed,
And plan it thus, so fit for every need?
Look at this chair, this door, that roof and know,
They could not be unless He meant it so.
— Comments —
Buck O. writes:
There is something about a very old oak tree. It’s sad to see one brought down. The stories they could tell.
I guess aging causes us (me) to appreciate things old, especially those things that really endure. In my neighborhood, in my friends backyard, there is an old oak that is protected and cared for by the state. The owner of the property on which it’s located was told that it’s near four hundred years old. Four hundred.
Across the street from it is a house named Clifton (there are other Clifton Houses), which is older than the United States. I lived a stone’s throw from it for more than a decade, before I became aware of it. Most of the people in my neighborhood of 120 or so homes, still aren’t aware of it. It’s just another driveway off the main road with a small sign at the entrance. I had a chance to inspect it a few years ago, when it was up for sale. It’s beautiful. Several large stone fireplaces and classic Quaker wood work. It has a bone-dry stacked-stone cellar, which is amazing in a neighborhood filled with sump pumps. A cedar shake roof, spaced-board on rafters, with no modern felt paper, is also bone dry. Impressive. It has a huge barn filled with antique farm implements. It sits on five acres, hidden in the middle of a hundred one-acre or less homes. A beautiful tree-lined driveway leads to the front door. The brick for it’s exterior traveled here as ballast in small wooden ships from England. It’s shifted a little, but it’s all still solid. The interior doorways original wood thresholds all remain, and they are worn completely away at their centers, from two hundred fifty plus years of foot traffic. What’s also amazing is that it’s been continuously occupied, but has only been owned by four different families.
Buck adds:
Just a quick note. I searched for info on my friend’s oak tree, but couldn’t find anything. I did find this Gazette story. It mentions a 500-year-old Wye oak that was brought down by a storm in 2002. The guys in this article are the likeable tree huggers.
