Unlike the leafless bare choirs
Of the barren branches of the maple
The oak retains its dead brown leaves
That hang like memorials of the staple

Of knowledge left behind by the dead.
What black ink still retains of the wisdom
Of souls deceased will be immortal
As long as minds can those texts plumb.

This is the essence of the oak, mark
Well this lesson from a stubborn tree
That seeks to defy the mortality of fall,
Longing from certainty of death to be free.

Dead leaves are like the empty dreams
Of mortal men and their fair wishes
To continue on as if the doom of death
Would live on as delightfully meretricious.

But memorials of the literary dead
Cannot raise their rotting leaves from dust,
For in their mortal lives there does reside
A single requisition of a living must.

Call forth the hopeful tree of life
Whose leaves are bright and green,
Won for us by the awful tree of death
That by Jesus’ sacrifice makes us clean.

Ordained Servant Online, April, 2026