New Hampshire Adventures: The White Oak

Sunday, September 30, 2012

The White Oak

From an acorn, no bigger than the tip of my thumb, the mighty oak - wamed by the sun and fed by the minerals of the earth converts these nutrients and the sun’s energy into growth.

Inch by inch, ring by ring, summer and fall feeds the promise of spring

While the winter’s sleep cast an ever more crooked and majestic shadow

upon the drifting snow.

This oak, the white, growns in a manner so different from its brother the red oak. Where the red reaches tall and powerful into the sky, putting every bit of its energy into a quest for the sun, this tree sends its branches in all directions, a gnarled and spidery look where each limb becomes the equal of a lesser tree. Where the Red Oak speaks of power and strength, this tree speaks of wisdom and an intimacy with its surroundings.

The Red Oak in only a few years will forbid all but the winged from its branches but this tree - even now – beacons to the children who are drawn to its branches and welcomed there with cool shade and the warmth of its embrace, an old friend watching over all as they too grow older and more gnarled . . . and perhaps, perhaps more wise.

The Perley Oak, Laconia NH Estimate to be more than 400 years old.