The Fallen Oaks

There is a place located behind the construction of the Public Safety Building. Trees, rocks, brambles, wetlands, and old decaying foundations reside in this quiet nook. This land is town-owned, shared by only those who know of its existence. Sequestered from public use, it remains dormant to time.

Upon hiking through the parcel, I came upon twin oak trees.  Amazed at their height and width, I wondered about their age. Magnificent specimens of time, sheltered from a saw’s blade, the twins grew toward the sky. 

They grew near a small stream that trickled into the cove below. The clear water must have nurtured them as their leaves blossomed in the spring and fell in the fall.  The trees roots had nourishment to sink deep into the soil in this rocky terrain.

Both measured over 11 feet in diameter, with a height I could not begin to judge.  But nature judged the twins. During a recent storm, they were hit by lightning.  Black charred remnants careen down their base. The oaks split at their roots, up-heaving dirt and rock as they fell to the earth. They will now return to the soil which first gave them birth.

Why should one care about a couple of oak trees?  Because they witnessed the expansion of our town.  By calculating the diameter of each tree, I figured that the one of the left was approximately 150 years old, and the right one was 10 years younger.  A seedling in 1863, the left oak watched our young men leave to fight the Civil War.  Its sister to the right grew to see them return. 

The poem by Joyce Kilmer (1886–1918) best describes these fallen observers:

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.