Fletcher Oak by Mary Oliver

There is a tree here so beautiful it even has a name. Every
morning, when it is still dark, I stand under its branches.
They flow from the thick and silent trunk. One can’t begin
to imagine their weight. Year after year they reach, they send
out smaller and smaller branches, and bunches of flat green
leaves, to touch the light.

Of course this has consequences. Every year the oak tree fills
with fruit. Just now, since it is September, the acorns are
starting to fall.

I don’t know if I will ever write another poem. I don’t know
if I am going to live for a long time yet, or even for a while.

But I am going to spend my life wisely. I’m going to be happy,
and frivolous, and useful. Every morning, in the dark, I gather
a few acorns and imagine, inside of them, the pale oak trees.
In the spring, when I go away, I’ll take them with me, to my
own country, which is a land of sun and restless ocean and
moist woods. And I’ll dig down, I’ll hide each acorn in a cool
place in the black earth.

To rise like a slow and beautiful poem. To live a long time.

~ 'Fletcher Oak' by Mary Oliver