Mother Oak

//bells

MOTHER OAK
PLATINUM HONORABLE MENTION
The old green oak
whispers
as the sky shades
from wild rose to
snow-shadow blue.
There’s a glimmer
of silver from the hook
embedded in her solid trunk,
the smell of nasturtiums
and newly cut grass.
They hear her murmuring,
like a reminiscing mother,
“I remember, I remember,
how you two,
dewy young, swung in
the hammock,
your mahogany hair
long and blowing,
his shout of a laugh,
mockingbirds warbling.
You lay quietly too,
now and then,
happy alone together
while I fanned
or shaded you.”

Grandchildren
laugh as they tip the hammock,
and make it sway.
They toddle yawning off to bed,
clutching the favorite toy of the day.

She pushes a tendril
of white hair out of her eyes.
They tuck the visiting grandchildren into bed,
go back outside to recoup
from the day,
gently swing
on the strong,
bleached-string
hammock,
between
the oak
and the plum tree,
which are, like them,
tied together
forever.
They glimpse the North Star twinkling
through the oak’s
murmuring leaves,
a lullaby
in the deepening dark.