Mighty oak.
How you have grown since you were but a small sapling. You started out from such a small little acorn. Passed over by the deer eating the other fallen acorn. A bird must have dropped you on top of the hill that you now stand so strong.
You slowly grew over the years. As time has passed, you witnessed many things. The coldness of the snow that bent the small branches of your youth. The wind that threatened to break your thin trunk so long ago. The sweltering summer days brought fires that scorched your bark. The droughts and floods of the decades ravished the lands. Each of these events threatened to tear you down.
Now your trunk and branches are strong and thick. Your trunk can withstand the strongest winds. Your branches can withstand the heaviest snowfalls. As they reach out for the sun in the springtime breeze, your leaves shimmer and shine in the warmth of the day.
During the spring you witnessed the renewing birth of life. Birds build their nests in your lush green leaves to hide their precious chicks. Squirrels run up and down your trunk in search of acorns for the pending winter’s cold. Beneath your strong branches, the deer gather around to eat the green grasses in the coolness of the shade you cast out.
Children run to your side and reach for your limbs. Pulling themselves up, they climb through your branches. They pretend to be adventurers, monkeys, and bandits. They soon grow into young adults who daydream about their futures. Gazing into the limbs and wondering where their childhood has disappeared to.
As spring turned to summer the heat of the day would burn your tender leaves. Your roots would search for the cool water just below the surface. Yet you protected the many young lovers as they shared your shade. Laying on a blanket and staring into each other’s eyes, building their courage up for a tender first kiss. As the days pass by and the lover grows closer, you witness the young man kneeling before his sweet, lovely lady. Before he asks, she
starts to cry. The answer is yes, she will marry him.
As fall arrives, your green leaves have changed to beautiful shades of red, brown, and orange. Slowly the draft to the ground, whirling in the air on the slightest of breeze. A sign the deer have waited for as you start dropping your acorns. Building their strength for the winter ahead as they eat. Yet the battle is on for the bucks to lock their antlers together, pushing and shoving, locking antlers together, in hope of winning a mate.
The lovers of old have also come to your trunk, grey-haired and showing the years that have gone by, searching for the youth that once was theirs. Showing their grandchildren how fun you still are as they watch them climb your branches for the first time.
Cold and bitter winds of winter rush in to replace the life that spring had enjoyed. Heavy snow would building on your limbs and weighing them down. Your branches are old and straining under the weight. Years have gone by and many have enjoyed your beauty, the time has come, and your age is great. It would appear that all life has left you, standing alone and bare.
A widow comes to you, reflecting on her life. The life that only she can remember, a life of her youth, a life that started at your base. The memories of her life with her lover under your branches. The tenderness of his kiss, and the dreams that they shared under your cooling shade. Crying of his pasting just days before, looking into the past so long ago. The past that you helped build for her to reflect on. She now looks to you to bring her lover back to her, memories of their first kiss and the dreams they had under you, for you are her comfort. As hope is seen in the small little buds of life starting to grow at the tip of your branches.
For you are the mighty oak, beautiful and strong as your branches start to show the life still within you. As life is still in you and starting to burst through the harshest of winters and the driest droughts. Year after year, decade after decade, you stand and survive.
