Walking through the Valley, a scientist discerns benevolence....

THE GOD TREE 

 Quercus lobata, California Valley Oak

 
 
The God Tree dropped its acorns
In the ancient autumn
For roving bands to gather;
Ohlone women basketed them,
Then pounded them
With sandstone mortars
And leached the tannins out
In flowing waters.
 
The God Tree’s temple
Is a low-railed sacred oval
To protect its privacy.
We stand outside,
In space that’s secular­
Reserved for California’s young
To hear the wisdom
Of poets and scientists.
 
The God Tree arches
Through both space and time.
Its years since saplinghood
Are more than our group’s
Human birthdays added each to each.
It forms a three-crowned Trinity:
Full forty feet of ordinary oak,
A hundred horizontal reach to south
With midway branches
Where it rests upon the ground,
And then another towering crown
Where that huge trunk
Turns upward once again.
 
Our priestess/guide elaborates
Upon its staunch parishioners.
A class of student teens
Once counted species
Within its thrall:
The hawk, the squirrel,
The mustard flower, the native grass,
The lichen and the lizard,
The cricket and the tiny wasp
Which creates pink micro-galls
As nurseries on the underside of leaves.
Two hundred thirteen separate species logged,
If the counters themselves were counted.
 
The God Tree carries
Both its pollen feathers
And its acorn flowers.
The wind insures a fertile source
Of future valley oaks.
The Tree’s soft, bright, photosynthesizing green
Will add another ring this year
To the living layer hid inside
It’s massive trunk.
Sugars surge inside its channels
And water finds its way
From root branches far underground
To trembling leaf tips.
All this before the deep-lobed leaves
Succumb to winter cold.
 
The God Tree
Rules benevolently
And asks no sacrifice
From us.

March 31,   2009