The Longing of Oak Trees

Without disturbing the bushtits’ sleep, toothed leaves 

saw through fog’s low ceiling into the orange glow              

of morning. The oak shakes off the night, its yellow      

catkins woozy with ejaculations, powdery waves        

of pollen drifting onto dozing squirrels, those thieves      

dreaming of cups plump with nuts. The oak billows      

its canopy against the day’s heat, gives a hollow groan   

only the crows hear. They know how the oak craves    

to leave this hill, to tangle roots with another beech,   

how it longs to spiral through cirrus clouds, to touch 

that blue. They’ve seen the titmice and jays its brown     

litter buries, watched it welcome mistletoe’s ravening reach       

beneath its bark. They know the quiet weariness of such       

wood, how after centuries of standing the oak longs to lie down.

Mary Petrosky