Old Oak

The old oak has fallen, unnoticed.

It's wide gray bulk horizontal now -- extending in the underbrush like a rounded wall. One hundred feet or more it was. From its top, the neighborhood was visible as a diorama; small toys coming and going while it endured. Its trunk was so wide that it could not be embraced. Wind breathed through its hand-sized leaves and acorns fell through unnumbered seasons. It held a tree house for some long time. Stories were read, there...

A sunset-tinted rose blooms in the yard. It smells like God.

Butterflies like bits of stained glass tumble in the air. Late last night, and on through the morning, the full moon poured light down on the oak, fallen. Perhaps deer and other creatures moved around it, through the underbrush.

Vast it still is, slumped upon the ground. The date of its birth, unknown -- as the date of its fall. Surely there must have been a great and booming sound as its tangled roots ripped free of softened earth, an oceanic crashing of leaves and branches. A deep pulse in the ground.

But none of this was seen or heard. Now, just the afterword -- and the mute settling of wood and sap.