Dead Oak Tree..

There can be a strange beauty in death..

It stood alone, as if an outcast from the nearby woods. How did it get there? You could tell it once was a mighty Oak tree, like the many that still stood tall and alive nearby. Once it's great limbs held a massive amount of lush green leaves. Now, it's limbs looked brittle and barren, void of any life. Many of it's limbs laid at it's base, like markers to a grave.

I found myself fixated on this one solitary tree, bypassing the natural beauty of the forest with it's thick green foliage. I was looking at a dead tree...a dead tree that was magnificent in death. In the background were fields of fruitful corn, and an old weather beaten red barn. It seemed to add to the tree's magnetic attraction.

Of all the natural beauty surrounding it, it occurred to me a painter would only want to capture the lone, breathtaking silhouette of this still massive, but lifeless tree. So I painted with words..

 

i'm gonna be gone someday

what do i want my memory to say

how will life remember me

let me be a dead oak tree

let me stand all alone

gone,but standing on my own

no marker, or stone engraved

let me stand where once i swayed

there's beauty in the shadow of death

a haunting image that takes your breath

to leave behind for all to see

to die in grace, a dead oak tree

let their eyes scan the fields

of stunning woods,and bountiful yields

i want to stand with my shadow cast

against horizons where nothing lasts

i was here, and here i'll be

forever live...the dead oak tree

 

Author's Note

I am still working on this piece..

Reviews

[Bhavya Kaushik]

"There can be a strange beauty in death.." - Yes, I agree...there is always a strange hidden beauty behind not only death but also behind pain, behind tears and behind heartbreaks.
This poem is certainly very different and you succeeded in conveying your message from the idea of a dead oak tree. This is indeed a very thoughtful piece of writing.
It is not at all only about the dead tree or the comparison of your life with the tree but it is widely about the philosophy behind the life of every individual.
Brilliant piece of writing!

[Valentine]

Rain, a great piece of writing..I know it reflects you and your own life yet it touches mine as I have watched the mighty oaks in my family tumble and fall the past few years at such young ages that it was hard to believe they ever stood at all. I think a tall oak dead or alive would be a much better place to go and plant a memory garden than in a cemetary among hundreds of stones withering away..loved it and it brought back memories of my dad and sister..God bless..Valentine

[Emily B]

I came back, too, I hear your voice reading this to me. And I can't help but tear a little and I can't say why exactly. This piece just seems different in some small way. But I have to agree. There is beauty in Death. The dead oak tree knows it as well as any of us.

[Collette]

this piece is stoic....so moving. I can't take my mind off of it, actually. This is the third time I've come back to it, in hopes of offering something, anything. Really, I can't find a thing I would change. However, I will thank you for bringing such a beautiful piece to life. I've always admired the rotting trees, still standing in the backdrop. You painted them in a new light, too. Wonderful job!

[Angel Bird]

This is a wonderful writing. One feels that these lines have a deep meaning to you, every word reverberates your profound and honest belief.

I can easily relate to that special moment and memory of it, I've found myself too already admiring the graceful beauty of a dead tree. The tree itself is dead, but its spirit lives on I believe. Its remains give shelter and a home to so many little animals, birds and insects so that even after its death its existence still makes sense. Yes some trees build themselves quasi a monument ,,,

Emotion and thought provoking images. You excelled again

[Jayne Ann Saporito]

Ray, you went and got me crying again. You know, where I walk there is an oak tree just likethe one you describe here. I've taken a picture of it. It stands out against the natural beauty of the woods and is in itself a thing of stark beauty. Sometimes, there is beauty in death as strange as that seems and you have captured it in your "painting" writing here perfectly. So glad to see you here again....God bless you!
Love
Jayne

[J. Hampton]

The "segue" ( if you will) to this piece...
coming from a personal revalation/insight...made the prose..more profound
One can't paint ...that !

Your use of ( lowercase i ) intentional or not....within the poem portion
brought a humbling air to this.... almost a "bowing" to its thought

Yes ....there is a magnifisance in death
in laying against the backrop of our "former" lives...
the contrast ... is sobering...only in that do many see the size or the power of ones life...
or the legacy of its' shadow.

Blesssssssssssssssssss

[Emily B]

oh, Ray. You've moved me beyond imagining. You are an expert painter/word sculptor. Your words are simply amazing.

[Last Lying Look]

This was beautiful. The fixation on the oak tree was really neat. When I find myself in such a place I too get caught in the moment. I really loved how you mentioned a barn and other trees in the background but the dead old oak tree was still the one you found stunning. Excellent work!

[Poeticpiers]

I liked your compaison of your life to the Oak trees life A wellwritten prose introduction followed by A piece of poetic prose equally well written I say poetic prose because the mter is all over the place although your rhyming was very good.The differing line lengths make it choppy to read aloud