OAK AFTER DARK (Monday Poem)

by Joyce Sidman


As nighttime rustles at my knee,
I stand in silent gravity

and quietly continue chores
of feeding leaves and sealing pores.

While beetles whisper in my bark,
while warblers roost in branches dark,

I stretch my roots into the hill
and slowly, slowly, drink my fill.

A thousand crickets scream my name,
yet I remain the same, the same.

I do not rest, I do not sleep,
and all my promises I keep:

to stand while all the seasons fly,
to anchor earth,
                    to touch the sky.




from Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night by Joyce Sidman, illustrated by Rick Allen, 2010, Houghton Mifflin