Inside Me Lives an Oak
I don't believe in the dome shape
of abundance, the rounded lobes, the bristle-
tipped leaves, but yes, the Ohlone got the balance
right, leeching tannins for sweetness. My reasons
for grudging the takeover are many, where the tree's girth
cramps my middle, and the distant voice of women
coffee klatching about markers for the coming season
and how I'll have to prepare. One morning, dye poured
out of my belly button, chunks of inner bark
taken and boiled into shades of brown and buff. Yes,
it hurt. I've felt the pinch of insect galls growing
on acorns, but figured, why not, and ingested them
as an anesthetic, despite fuzziness, despite the little scientist
wasps who inject chemicals because after all,
I should reap some benefit, and don't worry, I'll watch out
for gouty galls and how they cause twig
dieback. When I swing my arms they rattle as boughs
bend, and no, I'll never be new again, always
reaching for the ground, even with a canopy to hold
chestnut-backed chickadees, their chittering
a comfort I've only known since the tree started creaking.
I have to endure its complaining about the loss of habitat, loss
of its kin, loss and more loss telegraphed daily
as they converse the root system. One of its sisters
paid the price for a limb crashing, murdering
an innocent bystander. I heard whispering, how the tree's
parts were strewn over the slope where she'd grown
fifty years. I feel complicit in all this, embodied by the oak,
as in my spirit is spoken for.
Laurel Benjamin is the author of Written into the Curve of the Sea's Open Throat (Shanti Arts, 2026), and Flowers on a Train (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2025). She founded and leads Ekphrastic Writers and is active in the San Francisco Bay Area Women Poet's Salon. Publications: Pirene's Fountain, Lily Poetry Review, CALYX, Taos Journal of Poetry, Mom Egg Review. She has received fellowships with the Napa Valley Writers Conference and the Port Townsend Writers Conference. She invented a secret language with her brother. Read her work at: laurelbenjamin.com
I don't believe in the dome shape
of abundance, the rounded lobes, the bristle-
tipped leaves, but yes, the Ohlone got the balance
right, leeching tannins for sweetness. My reasons
for grudging the takeover are many, where the tree's girth
cramps my middle, and the distant voice of women
coffee klatching about markers for the coming season
and how I'll have to prepare. One morning, dye poured
out of my belly button, chunks of inner bark
taken and boiled into shades of brown and buff. Yes,
it hurt. I've felt the pinch of insect galls growing
on acorns, but figured, why not, and ingested them
as an anesthetic, despite fuzziness, despite the little scientist
wasps who inject chemicals because after all,
I should reap some benefit, and don't worry, I'll watch out
for gouty galls and how they cause twig
dieback. When I swing my arms they rattle as boughs
bend, and no, I'll never be new again, always
reaching for the ground, even with a canopy to hold
chestnut-backed chickadees, their chittering
a comfort I've only known since the tree started creaking.
I have to endure its complaining about the loss of habitat, loss
of its kin, loss and more loss telegraphed daily
as they converse the root system. One of its sisters
paid the price for a limb crashing, murdering
an innocent bystander. I heard whispering, how the tree's
parts were strewn over the slope where she'd grown
fifty years. I feel complicit in all this, embodied by the oak,
as in my spirit is spoken for.
Laurel Benjamin is the author of Written into the Curve of the Sea's Open Throat (Shanti Arts, 2026), and Flowers on a Train (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2025). She founded and leads Ekphrastic Writers and is active in the San Francisco Bay Area Women Poet's Salon. Publications: Pirene's Fountain, Lily Poetry Review, CALYX, Taos Journal of Poetry, Mom Egg Review. She has received fellowships with the Napa Valley Writers Conference and the Port Townsend Writers Conference. She invented a secret language with her brother. Read her work at: laurelbenjamin.com
