My poem, Oak, is up on RavensPerch today. A who-knows-where-the-time-goes meditation. Here it is:

While I was dozing
the seedling I planted
grew forty feet
and threatens my roof
in the wind.

My children went
from “mama”
to middle aged
with children
of their own—

marriages,
mortgages,
money worries,
and hair starting to gray
at the roots.

While I was dozing
my friends became
old and arthritic
with artificial hips
and knees that sound

like the tin man in the rain
Memory faded,
they talk of medical miracles
and how they’ve outlived
their physicians.

But my tree is magnificent
shading half a city block
with its wingspan.
Did I ever tell you
I planted it

as a seedling
and that it
grew to a thing
of wonder
while I dozed?