"Old Riverside Oak," Bob Ambrose, Jr.

"Old Riverside Oak"

(Bob Ambrose)

It was early March then,

a year and eternity past,

we brought Dad home.

From his old blue chair

he peered through new

windows, not his own

as snow blankets froze

our Southern woodland

into hard white silence

and gray flows flooded

the shallow river shoals

with an icy hush.

Do you remember

that dark night’s cold

when bitter winds descended

from bleak polar plains,

showering limbs and ice

over frozen foundations

of our beleagered home?

Powerless, huddled

in a house leaking warmth

we covered this fragile,

this gentle-souled man

with blankets and love.

Strong against the night,

but in strength unavailing

over softening banks,

the old riverside oak

surrendered itself to swirling gray

and lodged in downstream shallows.

A year now it’s been, a year

of great loss, a year nurturing

growth, and senescence

and the canopy fills again

closing gaps with lacy green

softening the void

now filled with light, but

still, the void.

Springtime truth emerges

from emptiness

with whispers of hope.

Mortal life, though dust

is forever redeemed

for we function within

a greater whole

which cannot quite be

resolved in the fun-house

mirrors

of our dim perception.

So we see now in part

but miss the unity beyond

that surrounds the void

in a cosmic embrace

apprehended, if at all

in a place beyond words

expressed in the silence

that speaks to the heart.

The old oak, which served the sky

still provides structure.

On trunk and limb

where hawk pairs once nested

mud turtles bask

gleaming in bright sun

over fresh spring flow.

Bob Ambrose Jr. retired from a career as environmental engineer at the Environmental Protection Agency in Athens, Georgia. His blog of original work is Reflections in Poetry. "Old Riverside Oak" also currently appears online at the Word of Mouth website.