The Old Oak, by Virginia Lowe

The Old Oak, by Meindert Hobbema (Netherlands), 1662.

The Old Oak

People with places to go
don’t look back
The artist the only observer
of this wild landscape 
Travel through quickly
on horse or foot
Escape from it
to the security and warmth 
of town, of other people.

Now look forward
Even that artist-observer
couldn’t imagine today
Wilderness, peaceful, cherished
Small patches to linger
Escape to it
from the city’s heat and noise
from too many other people
The track now marked for bushwalking
The road a six lane highway

Virginia Lowe

Dr Virginia Lowe has had poems published in seven anthologies as well as Silver Birch Press and Australian Children’s Poetry and various other journals as well as books for children. She is a prize winner in the Melbourne Poets’ Union competition. Her book is Stories, Pictures and Reality (Routledge) and she has published extensively on children’s literature. She has been a university lecturer, a librarian, and for the last twenty years has run a manuscript assessment agency http://www.createakidsbook.com.au/.