Ballad of the Oak Tree | Teen Ink

Ballad of the Oak Tree

May 7, 2023
By rosiebellis BRONZE, Gurnee, Illinois
rosiebellis BRONZE, Gurnee, Illinois
2 articles 0 photos 1 comment

Favorite Quote:
"Keep your love of nature, for that is the true way to understand art more and more"
"For my part, I know nothing with any certainty but the sight of the stars makes me dream"

- Vincent Van Gogh


Tell me again,

How the light sparked behind your eyes and you came alive as if nobody knew that somewhere far behind hid the darkness of a tired life leading to somewhere incredibly grand. Where stands the sorrow, the seed of the great big tree in your soul?

Does anybody know?

Do you?

Tell me again how your heart gave out when the bass hit the third verse and everything else seemed to fall beneath your feet—plunge into the magnitude of emptiness, not sure where the compass rose was situated in the stars shining overhead. Oh, where are we going? Where does this lead—who am I in a world of noise and of voice, where existence extends beyond me?

Body and soul, I believe in the untouchable, the breakable, the deep down root of it all. It’s a rhythm in my skin, deep as the drum—sing hallelujah! Every time I rise with the waking sun, breathe in the waking earth, remember there’s a ground beneath the soles of my shoes in which I might dip my toes to the mud—

Tell me again!

Over and over, until I remember,

Tell me again.

Sing it in your impossible voice, a song of gold and glass. Emotion seeps through the brittle of your bones—not blood, but something thicker. Ichor, gold, like the gods—hallelujah—music to my ears, elation to my eyes, an aesthetic epiphany from deep in the soul. Let me know when you’re awake again.

Sing it again.

Tell me again, when you’re ready to speak. I’ll always be ready to hear the timbre of your voice when its early and the smoothness has yet to settle in. A triumph, shaded in the light of day, a shadow upon the floor like roots to the tree that lives just outside our door. We can climb it every day, sing sweet music with the birds, and pretend to have not a care in the world.

Tell me again.

Again, this dream of ours. Dream of a salvaged soul re-built upon a severed stump—a seed serendipitously placed to revive what was once assumed to be lost. Roots, I think, run deeper than memories. Roots don’t like to forget. They linger, in the soil, with the worms, singing songs about sunlight and symphony until somebody comes along to tell it again, again, and again, of the songbird, somewhere far away, searching for its one way

Home.


The author's comments:

According to the Wiley Online Library, oak trees symbolize "longevity, strength, stability, endurance, fertility, power, justice, and honesty." All these things become harder to hold on to when moving away from home, away from one's roots. 


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