Beneath the Oak
By John Luthens
I know a spot of land where an oak tree springs into the sky. An old and mighty trunk that would challenge a giant to wrap around; gnarled limbs creaking with protest in the slightest breeze; generations of leaves and spent acorns beneath the canopy that spring and crunch beneath the feet like a carpet whose fibers have been spun with tiny firecrackers.
The oak lifts its branches across an island of stunted saplings and brush that is no more than acre wide. Marsh grass and seeps of water protect its flanks for a hundred yards in every direction. When the world freezes, ice groans beneath my boots and the wind in the open marsh stings my face, but I find myself climbing time and again into the shelter of the oaken island.
Although I’ve yet to see another human print, many deer frequent the grove. They bed in the brush and trample the ground beneath the oak into a cow pasture. They usually spy me plodding across the marsh at a distance. Flashes of brown and white, bounding away like the devil himself is in pursuit. Sometimes they sneak back in if I sit quietly enough at the base of the tree.
I’ve spotted the first robins of the year pecking beneath the oak. It might still be snowing in waves, but the birds who were brave enough to make an early migration find warm and dry shelter in the branches and open water in the marsh. Hawks hunt for mice across the grass and mourning doves call in the oaken shadows. Strange warblers and foreign bird songs chirp from the surrounding thickets, and unknown feathers float in the air. I suppose I should knock the dust off my bird book and identify them, but it never seems all that important to me in the grand scheme of nature’s mystery.
Peering around its trunk, feeling the rough bark of the oak scratching my skin, I watched a fox chasing a rabbit in the setting sun of the marsh. I didn’t witness the outcome but, judging by the pieces of fur and remnants of turkey feathers in the surrounding brush, the predators of the world win as many chases as they lose. If that’s a metaphor for life, I really couldn’t say. All I know for certain is that without one there can be no other.
I’ve wiled away hours beneath the wisdom of this oak. It must be close to a century old and has seen years of troubles come to pass. I first thought it was the remoteness of the place that beckoned me, but the unwavering spell cast down from the mighty branches has long since changed my mind. Its leaves turn from green to red to brown, falling with the acorns to add another layer to the forest floor every season. But they always come back to blossom in an endless cycle that is so much larger than me.
I reckon that I keep returning beneath the oak because it frees my eyes and mind to wander. And it never fails to set my heart on fire.
John Luthens is a freelance writer and outdoor photographer from Grafton, Wisconsin. His first novel, Taconite Creek, is available on Amazon or at www.cablepublishing.com, or by contacting the author at Luthens@hotmail.com