After writing the post immediately below, looking for something altogether unrelated, I find this:
Black Oaks
Okay, not one can write a symphony, or a dictionary,
or even a letter to an old friend, full of remembrance and comfort.
Not one can manage a single sound though the blue jays carp and whistle all day in the branches, without the push of the wind.
But to tell the truth after a while I’m pale with longing for their thick bodies ruckled with lichen
and you can’t keep me from the woods, from the tonnage
of their shoulders, and their shining green hair.
Today is a day like any other: twenty-four hours, a little sunshine, a little rain.
Listen, says ambition, nervously shifting her weight from one boot to another — why don’t you get going?
For there I am, in the mossy shadows, under the trees.
And to tell the truth I don’t want to let go of the wrists of idleness, I don’t want to sell my life for money,
I don’t even want to come in out of the rain.
— Mary Oliver
HA…it is isn’t it. (and she is one of my very favorites)- for more synchronicity, see my photo from today :)
Every field guide to Calif trees should include a poem with each listing. Just the other day, I was out chasing black oaks with those leaden California Natural History Guides. With this poem, identificaiton would have gone much, much faster :)
Cheers, J