ANOTHER OAK

Poison ivy crawls at its root,

I dare not approach it,

It has an air of hate.

One would say a man had been hanged to its branches,

It holds them in such a way.

The moon gets tangled in it,

A distant steeple seems to bark

From its belfry to the sky.

Something that no one ever loved,

Is buried here:

Some grey shape of deadly hate,

Crawls on the back fence just beyond.

Now I remember — once I went

Out by night too near this oak,

And a red cat suddenly leapt

From the dark and clawed my face.