Red-belly

~A poem by Melissa Dowland, images by Mike Dunn

Down in my woods grows a graceful old oak
With a stout trunk and a crown of branches,
Splitting like feathers, reaching for the sky.
It has stood, thus, for centuries.

Nearby, a smaller maple.
Its crown lost in an ice storm,
A few broken branches strain upward
with peeling bark remaining, like something partially remembered.

Guess—
              Which tree does the red-belly love?
              Which tree do I?