Even after our wild winds of recent weeks, some last bright leaves are still hanging on out there. “Woods Omen” takes us to one especially red oak tree, and finds in it not just a brightness but a presence. The poem’s use of personification lets us meet this small but powerful tree as an ancient, primal and vividly knowing creature.

Richard Sewell grew up in Montville. He founded (with Robert Joyce) The Theater at Monmouth and taught theater at Colby College. He lives in Portland with actress Kim Gordon.

 

Woods Omen

By Richard Sewell

 

Stone,

lichen,

leaf;

the flame unlocked alive out of the dead.

How red these oak leaves in the wet were,

red, palm up, some half a dozen on a stalk.

Gray fall rain

had glossed them till they glowed.

 

One more small being in the standing wood,

this knee-high tree knew something urgent

to be said through colors of rust and blood.

It would not talk

with the amber rustlings round us.

 

Crowned with a shock

of blaze, like a Druid child-king, it withstood

all thought that was not wet and red – bright red.

The mineral side of the world was pierced,

and bled.

 

Megan Grumbling is a poet who lives in Portland. Deep Water: Maine Poems is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. “Woods Omen” copyright © 2019 by Richard Sewell. It appears by permission of the author.

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