Somewhere Here
There was the oak by the river
that seemed to have been old always
it was easier to picture
a time before it appeared there
with the sky still empty of it
and the crevices in the stone
without the sightless embrace
of its roots feeling for water
or even to conceive of it
in its acorn forming on some
limb held high and never seen
through the days of a summer once
wi th no one there yet to number
the mornings or hear the singing
than to think it had ever been
the green eyelids of two first leaves
wi th all that they knew inside them
still closed in a dream of the light
on its way to recognize them
or to imagine it rising
among the spring flowers slender
as a willow or believe in
the verdant ages of its youth
even the name which in time they
would give it and the place of its
shade was older than anyone
could say older than the stories
told of it and once may have been
a word for No One yet women
came and prayed to it for children
leaving gifts in its deep hollows
their children came and prayed to it
for love and to live forever
