Magnificence

[aerickson]

Magnificence
Elegy for an old Oak tree

Twisted like an old man;
A senescent magnificence with
Thousands of curling fingers
stretching desperately for his lover,
but never grasping, never having,
only yearning;
too many limbs hanging with age,
he is too empty to be filled again.
Only his hunger remains.
She is too far, too high above him.
Her brightness can never be owned,
only gazed at.
Her luminous eye watches him tenderly,
but age has left him blind, and
as a blind man taps his cane, so
he taps the sky fruitlessly.
All alone but for the rare leaf
clinging in an odd loyalty to an old life;
Magnificence crumbling in on itself while
laughing wind mocks his efforts;
howling around his rough skin
and greedily pulling at errant twigs.
It is not long now.
The opus of the oak and the sun
will falter
and lay quiet on the forest floor.
But the sun will not forget her lover.
Hers is an everlasting passion.
She will gaze lovingly upon him,
coaxing life from death;
raising a new memorial
to his magnificence.

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