saw live-oak growing,
all alone stood it, moss hung
down from the branches …
I Saw in Louisiana A Live-Oak Growing by Walt Whitman
I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing,
All alone stood it and the moss hung down from the branches,
Without any companion it grew there uttering joyous leaves of dark green,
And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself,
But I wonder’d how it could utter joyous leaves standing alone there without its friend near, for I knew I could not,
And I broke off a twig with a certain number of leaves upon it, and twined around it a little moss,
And brought it away, and I have placed it in sight in my room,
It is not needed to remind me as of my own dear friends,
(For I believe lately I think of little else than of them,)
Yet it remains to me a curious token, it makes me think of manly love;
For all that, and though the live-oak glistens there in Louisiana solitary in a wide flat space,
Uttering joyous leaves all its life without a friend a lover near,
I know very well I could not.
Unlike Uncle Walt, I wasn’t in Louisiana but in Charleston, SC.
Also unlike Uncle Walt, I was surrounded by live oaks instead of just one that stood out alone.
Still, their look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself.
But not that in anyway might I match up with these wonders but only in how temporary I was and huge these trees were.
So there was Walt, in another state, a state named after a King of France.
And there I was in another City and a State both named after a King of England.
Louis and Charles.
I will be gone tomorrow.
Louis and Charles will be forgotton.
But these trees.
I can’t image the world without these magnificent trees.
They will still be here.
No Haiku For You 