P O E T R Y
Oak
LESLIE LEONARD
T
HERE is a vibration in the marrow of me ,
It ’ s a slow hum like a quiet hive or the first deep moans of thunder . I am a coiled oak root , and my hollow pathways thirst . I have curled my toes in deep black earth and deeper red clay and I have been like a rigid lightning rod , and a thrumming livewire . I am whole and solid all the way through and I can feel the space that I occupy , here now , and here too . My sister is the spine of a sequoia , she is the fixed crag that juts from the earth to be accommodated , and she holds on tight enough to strangle . My mother is a magnolia , low and settled like the flat river-stone that feels the muffled water flex around it like the deft and weightless touch of God .
You would perhaps like to be the deep-rooted pine , but I assure you that you stretch yourself too thin , and the anxious , shedding birch is closer to the truth .
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