To the Oaks

Hail, giant stately survivors,                                                                     

Weathering frigid winds and humid heat,

 lavishly popping kernels of acorns on the walk beneath,

(as everyone knows who has crunched through them)

Urging life to upspring into the future.

You were young’uns, yourselves,

eighty years or so ago.                                                                                                    

You out-sized your neighbors.

With towering high-rise canopies, and rooted deep,

You appeared as staunch sentinels enclosing the way.

You always had room for more inhabitants,               

from the hidden, least noticed, down-deep creature

 to the most melodious bird or roguish squirrel.

You urged life to upspring into the future.

Your presence welcomed Sunday visiting relatives and friends –

 children played under you, crisscrossing your leafy, shadowed patterns. 

You witnessed laughter, joy and, sometimes, tears.

Many a soul intuitively sensed your strength, stability, awesomeness,

 And, hopefully, left refreshed. 

You will be re-membered (not just in Sr. Mary’s album).

 In the ground nurtured by your deepest-down strands,

 young’uns (Oaks? We don’t yet know) will grow…

green and full and vibrant with life –

the new Guardians of the monastery way –

 inviting all who enter here, to seek peace and pursue it.

 That in all things God may be glorified!

    Sr. Sharon Portwood, OSB