Oak Curiology
A poem by Richard Spilman

Oak Curiology

From a nomad seed
buried in ice, 
a dim white worm,
throws off its windings,
dry as vellum, breathes.
Then all hell breaks loose–
waving masses of green
on a stiff spine, loud 
as a tenement and let 
to an indiscriminate rabble.
Years later, sparse with age
and shorn of its bark,
it becomes prophetic,
like the path of a comet,
like runes etched in rock.

About the Author:

Richard Spilman is the author of In the Night Speaking and of two chapbooks, Suspension and Dig.

He was born and raised in Normal, Illinois, half a block from Main Street in a house that backed onto Sugar Creek. Across the street was a Dairy Queen that sold Christmas trees in December. A block down Main Street was the world’s first Steak and Shake. He now lives a long way from Normal, in Hurricane WV.

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