Directions to Oak Grove

March 29, 2026 Poet:‍ Dianne Oberhansly ‍Artwork: Oak Grove by Stephen McMillan

Directions to Oak Grove

Turn left, then wait one hundred years.

There on that eastern slope where sky presses

Earth into dusty mulch, you'll see

A grove of twisted messiahs. Fifty,

Sixty feet high, mostly leafless now,

branches grasping up in endless wanting.

Don't look for sudden color here; most everything

Is quiet: color of beetles, of leaf rot, of long

Mondays and old pencil lead. Here and there,

A scrim of deep russet or moss, and higher up,

A desirous streak of blue from who knows

Where. Otherwise, the mood is mist

And timelessness.

You'll know you've entered Oak Grove

When you feel your own colors fading,

Your vibrant human self emptying to sepia,

to smoke. Just some trees on a hillside,

and yet wonderfully, somehow,

they un-name you.