Its limbs no longer extend trustingly to the sky;
still, this fallen oak is mighty,
dead though it lies in the meadow-wood.
Ancient, silvery, contorted branches
lunge now toward the earth,
becoming one with it,
giving back of itself
the bounties of life,
a gift of an unbroken circle.
In a bounteous burst, the colors
of Spring have come upon us,
the mingled scents of flowers and damp fertile loam,
and under the rotting stump of a long-dead oak tree
a tiny sapling thrusts its first leaf toward the sun.
©2002 by Mary Barnett
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