Considering that trees have excellent memories and that most are good storytellers — although the cypress can go on; and the sequoia, full of its own notoriety, can exasperate; and despite its more humble appearance (or because of it) the elm has been known to embellish to the point of incredulity — still, one tree I’d like to hear from is that ancient one, an oak by tradition, on the Plains of Mamre.

But not having access to the original, I’ve sought the counsel of a local oak, a Garry, leaning out on the north side of Beacon Hill Park. Oaks, as we know, are meticulous record keepers. So I asked what talk there’d been concerning that millennia-wizened relative.

It replied, as oaks do, nodding its canopy, rustling its branches with much affectation, twiggy tips stroking furrows of trunk, frowning as it scanned its inner rings, collecting details as though they weren’t immediately at its disposal.

Then, momentously clearing its throat of chips, splinters, and the odd beetle, it began: “Once upon a time (an opening, by the way, that is original with trees and a strict proof of a story’s veracity), under the dogged sun of a baked eastern plain, three angels of God appeared through the heat waves and approached Sarah and Abraham, who at the time were camped beneath an oak of Mamre.

“As the angels drew close, the oak began to tremble, from the deepest threads of its roots on up through the rising sap, the bark softening, almost splitting, new buds out of season broke forth like notes of song, while in its shade the angels reclined, cooled themselves.

“Abraham ran through the camp, casting orders, fetching water, veal, meal cakes, and curds. Then settled down to negotiate. Sarah watched, amused but inspired.

“Enlivened by the transformation of the oak, and the presence of the Three, Sarah’s 90-year-old body grew young again; her laugh rose like a lithe oak, like a new mother, like a woman who refused to be erased.

“It’s thought the tree of Mamre is charcoal now, a casualty of failed diplomacy and stray brimstone. But among us trees, as among many women, it is known that the Oak of Mamre survives, like a holy covenant: green shoots and scions springing up in places of need, throughout our wounded world.”

pins you with her eyes, “Put down your book,” she says, “high time
to read between the lines of your tangled life,
that’s where the clarity is, Honey.”

“Back then,” she says, “before you were given your script to memorize,
and hustled out the double doors to follow the stipulated dream,
you used big ingenious slashes of crayon, drew, bold, ego-less, cerise clouds,
for a sky you’d seen in the world you forgot after you were born.”

But it’s fear and loneliness and getting old you want to talk about,
but can’t find words to begin.

“Listen,” she says, “to the craving of a kestrel, watch the lightning
turns of dragonflies, the grey squirrel rappelling down a willow, see the dying
elm gilded in crimson, purple loosestrife gracing the pitted parking lot,
have you forgotten the perfume of fir trees? or play some Mitchell
or Morrison, anything to clear the bog from your mind.”

“But some regrets I can’t forget,” you say, “some ache I just can’t take.”

“Look,” she says, “all goes onward and outward,
the sunrise blazes, the sunset baptizes, and between
is mayhem and bliss, and the world you forgot is this world,
and this world of beauty and sorrow is midwife to the next,
and the next won’t be like anything anyone ever supposed.

“So get on with it, Gorgeous, gather up those tangled lines,
roll them up like wool,
spin them into something like gold.”

you must be weirdly young or brazenly old,
alternatively, a sufferer and a worshipper, a defender

less driven by grievance (that old rut),
than curiosity,
and like your outrageous aunt who refuses to knit,
enchanted by bewilderment,

yet, irrevocably lost, and desperate, without
your partner’s goodnight kiss,
her smile in the low light.

True, the signs are real, the crown fires, the sky rivers,
are real,
the toxic cumulus, the wizened arbutus,

the fan palm shedding its propellers, the drought-cracks
in conifers, the ant invasion in the kitchen,
the vicious noise of Lockheed Martin,

grottos crumbling, cities excreting, our soiled empire,
with its fallen doctrine of eternal growth, turning

to the marvels of modern detergents, the whitening agents,
spreading,

a dusting of fascism, thickening, darkening,
dust devils hinting at tornados,

our attendant fear like a street dog following,

our convenient ear wax, our companionable cataracts,
Like in the thirties, my dad would have said, not enough alarm,

even the book of Revelation, despite its mythical construction
and preterist interpretation,
feels real.

Let the beauty of the Lord be upon us,
cried the Psalmist, anguished

like Judas, weeping and repentant,
on the highway from Golgotha,

like Mary Magdelene, at the open sepulchre, weeping, stooping,
peering,

and just here, at the point of giving up, the rose appears,
and one becomes its fool.

I didn’t know that when my father died, he’d be back,
and wearing his robin’s-egg-blue suit to Sunday dinner,
his tie loosened, jacket slung over the oak armchair,
his tanned face, his white forehead from his Co-op cap,
and under those pale blue eyes, flashing like specula,
his full smile, like a favourite sweater you can wear
all day, where we, his quarter-acre of family,
lingered into the cool of the evening.

When that scene, six months after his burial, settled
into the cells of my dreams, I searched in vain for a word
to match this kind of reaped-joy-from-sown-tears contentedness.

That was almost thirty years ago, when I still didn’t know
that if you listen close enough, you’ll hear the northern lights
sing, Glory in the Highest, or that if you linger long enough,
the staggering intricacy of a dandelion, gone to seed,
will rinse your day in silver, or that if you plant your hands deep
in soil, the tide of your blood will sync with the earth, or that when
you finally let go of your pick-ax, as well as many other things,
a gold seam in the deep mines of your soul, will appear.

These are things I picked up without knowing — while walking
with him across a stubble field to a stuck tractor, while watching sparks
fly past his welding helmet, while seeing him at his small desk
in a cramped corner at the back of our store, head bowed,
the light from his green lamp circling around a wave of black hair —
things that only now have set up camp within my heart.

How I pray, when my day has come and gone,
my own sons would find me
in such a dream.