Oak, April
This time: to know the oak copse from the inside out
in its becoming –
through a week when leaves begin to simmer,
dense frills still crumpled at the twig tips,
suddenly unfolding
into leaf, leaf, to orangey green, its opposites
giddily combined, each in the first flush of the other
in a volatile Spring tryst.
First one
outlier, young, south facing, goes off, oak bomb
bursting in slow motion; the report of it
shudders through the copse, a whisper
through a crowd,
it's beginning,
then it's a thunderhead of green
compacted light, a whole year's photosynthesis
held at the point where mass and energy, the nubbled
crookback centuries, the amazement of Spring,
hang on the cusp of each other
as if anything could happen this time round.
Philip Gross has published nearly 30 collections of poetry in 40 years, most recently The Shores of Vaikus (Bloodaxe, 2024). Read more.
“Oak, April” will appear in The Field, the Wood, the Way by Philip Gross (Bloodaxe, forthcoming).