After ten dry years, the drought-killed,
dead-standing oaks have shed their limbs
in piles, like clothes at their feet—some
centuries claiming space, offering summer
shade to cows, acorns to a host of hungry
mouths, hidden homes to hawks and lesser
feathered flocks—and have begun to tip
over as the rain-soaked earth lets go
of their decomposing roots to rest
on fences or across the dirt tracks
between us and our children grazing
the ridgetops: like emerald thighs, toes
reaching for the flats along the creek.
Despite the disassembled skeletons
of a generation passing that litters
and melts into the ground, lush canyon
and slope come alive to welcome and beckon
to embrace me for the first time
in a decade—and I overwhelmed, submissive
having spent my penance on unknown sins
I will confess just to prolong this moment.
drycrikjournal 
in their own slow time they will be the dirt that feeds the grass and the newer oaks
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Lucky enough to live in a place for a long time where most oaks outlive us, I’m old old enough to have seen the transformation happen, turn to dirt right before my eyes.
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My heart is broken. I loved the Oaks with a full heart all my life there and everywhere else. None to replace I suppose. Will you plant acorns with fences around them as another measure of hope for the future? I know it would take years past your lifetime and mine…
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The acorns seem to find places to root between logs and rocks without our help during good years and bad, centuries of adaptation to thrive on this ground. Here on Dry Creek is some fenced mitigation ground for the Lake Kaweah Enlargement Project where the Blue Oaks, planted like an orchard, haven’t fared all that well–they’re young yet and don’t demand near the water they will 20-30 years from now. At a cost of $10,000/tree, less than 10% will make it.
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Beautiful, John!
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Thanks, Louise, a natural dichotomy, quite a sight to see and enjoy.
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Love this John. And so happy for your rain. But oh so sad about those beautiful old oaks.
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Thanks, Denise. Just beautiful here right now.
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