I Saw in Consciousness an Oak Alive

Call this Consciousness an oak tree—either metaphor will do.

And say this oak tree grew ten thousand leaves—say green—not red, nor blue.


Let’s pretend these leaves—ten thousand leaves—have come to see themselves

as something other than that oak tree—so something other than themselves.


And then at autumn feel the fear they face before they start to fall—

despite the fact they’ve always been that oak—still am, still here, still tall.



~Son Rivers 2009