Rockport’s Goose Island Oak Tree Talks about Poetry

Chip Dameron

September 6, 2026

Yes, I’m ancient, and now folks like you

pose beneath me for “I was there” photos.

I’ve weathered the world on this coastal spot

through wildfires and dozens of hurricanes,

and for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds

of years I’ve taken in rainfall and sunlight

and sea breezes and turned them every spring

into thousands of green quercus haiku,

so similar in shape but so distinct

in what each one tells about the twig life

I’ve given it, and after they’ve departed

to let the earth absorb their brief musings,

there is room for another batch of buds

that I will fill with arboreal vigor.

May your own poems leaf out and grow green.

Chip Dameron's latest collection of poems, As the River Tumbles On, is forthcoming from Lamar University Literary Press.