(Interior live oak, Quercus wislizeni)

Hey, big fella—yeah, you big,
shaggy live oak—nice to see you

craggy-barked behemoth, you.
How’s your year been?

Sorry I haven’t been by to chat
lately. I’ve been walking other

parks, taking different avenues,
chatting with you elder statesmen.

I’ve read that your genus can live
a couple hundred years, that your

bark gets more furrowed with age,
though you hang onto your glossy

green leaves, your full crown. Now
that I’m officially in my senior years,

I’m taking notes in the company
of trees, sheltering in your sanctuaries,

you deep listeners, you poems that
the earth writes upon the sky.*

I look to you and your kindred spirits
for tips on living long, staying upright,

remaining vital to friends—not least
to butterflies with delightful names:

from the California Sister, the Golden
Hairstreak and the Mournful Duskywing

to the Western Tiger Swallowtail.
I’ve come tonight to stand under your

generous canopy watching the rise
of a Hunter Moon, Jupiter hanging

like a winking earring below, me
humming the Holst theme, a majestic

piece of symphonic genius befitting
your grandeur. Teach me patience

with all that arrives, not least
the coming winter. What you have

weathered I can only imagine. Yet
look at you, standing tall, poised in

your vitality, your abundance of life.

•••

*poet Kahlil Gibran

•••

You can listen to the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s 2015 performance of “The Planets—IV,
Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity” by Gustav Holst, Susanna Mälkki, conductor.