Where Once An Oak, Is Poem by Walter Burns

Where once an oak, is now a tallow tree
Before this winding road a sharper curve
The pungent tar that paved the patchwork years
And now the yellow streaks are slowing still
I see the picket fences haven't changed
Each woven cross is held up by the next
But through decay, I still can pick my teeth
As if I want that sharpness in my bones
To haunt the times of when I hungered most
Would be the times my will was stronger yet

I hear my mother call me as I crept
The withered oak to dance on edge of wall
I wavered back and forth on hinging wind
The tinge of guilt my frame could not support
I'd been as sullen, slow, but yet survived
The summers heat; the winters gnawing pang
To wanderlust the way from oak to street
And find the path was winding to obey

So have I lied myself into a sleep?
The way is short but still the road is long
I watch the cars indifferently return
At both the ends were lined a cul-de-sac
I once was on the track they both are now
Opposing forces hoping for a crash
As now I want to pick my teeth of meat
I sit and think of times I hungered most

My mother was a cross some years ago
And I was left without direction home
My father woven to her not too long
And I was left with nothing but this street
A Chinese tallow tree where once an oak
And now a sweet gum stands before my eyes
As weeping willows shade my mourning walk
I do not feel as hungry as I've been
To seldom see a wave or smiling face
I must be sated since I walk this road
To see the empty houses full of life