The poetic city: “The Singing Oak in City Park”

The Singing Oak in City Park

Oh brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, let’s go down

To the place where weary bones are allowed rest

There is time enough for life to unfold, time enough to toil

Oh growing, oh grown

Have we felt too hard for the winter?

Look around

Wrack your bones for the sound

Do you know what it means?

It was theirs and it is ours

And it will be theirs again

Oh big, be made small

In the shade, in the sound

It is ours, if only for now

–Madeline Laborde