"The Magic of Reading" by Josephine Florens
Alex Turissini | The Oak Tree and the Wind
No matter how the wind blows,
the great oak cannot bend.
Such is its constitution: deep-rooted,
unchanging. And one day,
a summer storm came, and just
as the oak’s boughs were close to breaking,
a cattail piped up. If you were wise,
you’d do as we do, it advised.
But cattails, like the mountain sedges
and the meadow’s grass-for-hay, easily sway,
and when the wind blows them,
all make the same noise: almost none,
a whoosh over prostrated stems,
a light rustling, then done.
Whereas the oak, in resisting,
creaks and groans, and perhaps topples
or holds its own, but either way,
registers upon the ear its brief, defiant
solo, its tribulation a song
that the cattails do not know.
the great oak cannot bend.
Such is its constitution: deep-rooted,
unchanging. And one day,
a summer storm came, and just
as the oak’s boughs were close to breaking,
a cattail piped up. If you were wise,
you’d do as we do, it advised.
But cattails, like the mountain sedges
and the meadow’s grass-for-hay, easily sway,
and when the wind blows them,
all make the same noise: almost none,
a whoosh over prostrated stems,
a light rustling, then done.
Whereas the oak, in resisting,
creaks and groans, and perhaps topples
or holds its own, but either way,
registers upon the ear its brief, defiant
solo, its tribulation a song
that the cattails do not know.
Alex Turissini is a graduate of the MFA program at Louisiana State University. His poetry has appeared in The Gettysburg Review, Atlanta Review, Bayou Magazine, One Art, and elsewhere, and he has been a contributor at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. His website is alexthomaswrites.wordpress.com
Josephine Florens is a Ukrainian artist based in Germany. Her paintings explore identity, memory, and resilience through expressive color and symbolic form. Exhibited internationally, her works have appeared in journals and collections across Europe and North America.
