Live Oak Forest
A mosaic of acorn shards
twisted, brittle branches,
and rusted leaves
of that tell-tale shape,
pierced by columns of live
trunks thrusting skyward.
Amongst the living are a
scattered remnant of
flaking bark and failing limbs,
no challenge for whatever
gust of breeze or stormy blast
breaks through the spackled canopy.
Echoed machine-gun pops
of a woodpecker attack and a
scamper of squirrels playing
tag from tree to tree trigger
a brief shower of nuts to
reimburse the forest’s floor
for Winter’s decay and Spring’s
super-redundant replication.
Seedlings pop up among the trunks,
their seasonal, not-yet-punched
lottery tickets in hand;
destined to be a grand
live oak, or just another
twisted, brittle piece of
re-cycling dropped on the floor.
Poem by Russell Willis
Ethicist and online education entrepreneur, Russell Willis, emerged as a poet in 2019. Since then, his poetry has been published (or accepted for publication) in Last Leaves, Vermont Public Radio Between the Lines Series, Atherton Review, Sledgehammer Literary Review, Intangible Magazine, 433, Breathe, Peeking Cat, As Above So Below, Grand Little Things, Frost Meadow Review’s Pandemic Poetry, October Hill, Cathexis Northwest, Meat for Tea, The MOON magazine, Snapdragon: A Journal of Art & Healing, Tiny Seed Literary Journal, The Esthetic Apostle, and eight anthologies.