Alona

1.
I am three hundred years old
eighty feet tall, I am
large sprawling
and sinuously curved

my roots are messengers
luminous with question and
answer, my leaves absorb
innocence from the air

I remembered these things Friday
lying under the live oak
when I came home spinning
from the new girl Alona

who has a voice like leaves
in wind, drifting hair
like Spanish moss and a scent
yellow as oak flower in spring

2.
sit down says the teacher impatient
I am late to class again Monday

but now Alona's wood-brown eyes
are looking, they see the living reach

of my roof-high branches, the age
grooved in my silver bark

and colossal movement
in my roots