The Oaks Shadow

For fifty and one hundred years,
The oaks shadow has been cast.
Across a forest wide, and dressed in green.

It’s all encompassing canopy,
Not only bough and twig,
But home to those who nest there in-between.

A mighty trunk so stable,
Knurled and knotted stands,
So silently it’s tips sway in the breeze.

Yet many changes come and gone,
The woods around you shrunk,
As man fells and carves, to make his great ravines.

I hope that they don’t reach you,
Your bicentenary you see,
The mighty, proud and beautiful oak tree.

Heath Gunn