Stiffness you share with an oak now in winter.
Gnarled branches, gnarled fingers; we’re still alive,
ladders and spokes–Mushrooms and squirrels don’t care.
Hair drops like leaves, bare limbs, bald crowns;

blithe elasticity once shared with saplings is
gone; bending and rising are difficult now.
How greenish young trunks are, how lithe!
Time to confront the ringed face of a stump:

somebody felled him.  A wooden corpse and
chitin teems remain—Yet most oaks survive:
in a little while, mountain laurel will bloom and you
will be transformed again, albeit stiffer than ever.