Love and Oak Trees.
by Peter DiBart

For Jeannine

To start.
A single proud bloom above the wild green.
A beginning.
Face to the sun, the season is spring.
Face to the sun, growing and reaching for the heights and possibilities.
The heights are joy. Tempered only with the possibility of the next achieved.

A change in day, a new leaf, a new stalk.
Dizzy and giddy it swings and rolls to the music of the summer breeze.
In the smile of the sun and the sway of the breeze.
The growing awareness of something else.
Stalks and leaves and proud height do more than bring the joy of the moment.
They serve a deeper purpose.
Not seen. Not yet understood.
But through a growing awareness.

By reaching for the heights.
By giving yourself over to the sun.
By bending when the wind is mad.
It is the depths that grow deeper.

Leaves cool and ablaze, in the season of fall.
They swirl and dance to the earth from the new heights of old summer.
The oak does not fear the loss of fire.
It has come to understand.
That it is not the fire that sustains.
But the depths of its roots.

When the wild green is given to grey and to white.
Sweet chorus of mellow breeze to heightened crash of running cymbals.
And the smiling sun serves only its memory.
The season is winter.
Those that have only the surface have nothing or worse.
Those with roots, turn in, draw deep.
Warmth and life from the depths.
The season is winter. Winter will always come.

Setting down roots and understanding.
Only by reaching does the foundation become stronger.
Setting down roots and understanding.
The journey is long. One and many seasons.
Each with its own opportunity for heights and possibilities.

High above the wild green.
Arms outstretched firm and aware.
Always ready to receive the sun.
Always ready to provide the shade.
Always ready to bare the weight
Standing as conductor before the elements.
Wind, rain and each leaf a player in the complex symphony.
Still swinging, still rolling, still reaching for the possibilities.

Far below the wild green.
Roots spread wide and deep.
Strong as heartwood, fine as lace.
The roots give memory to season.
The roots give balance to reach.
The roots give life when there is none to be had above.

Those that remark at heights achieved
Should better remark at the depths.
It is that measure of depth
That sustains the oak in the madness and joy of the wild green.