Tuesday, July 17, 2012

The Mighty Oak


If a tree could BE a poem, as indicated by Alfred Joyce Kilmer’s poem “I think that I shall never see, a poem lovely as a tree”, then I submit that the swamp white oak makes a beautiful poem. With strong, almost muscular limbs reaching out at ninety-degree angles from the broad trunk, there is something quintessential in its architecture that lends it an air of majesty.
Native oaks in North America have long served useful purposes of many different sorts. For example, the acorns feed over one hundred animal species, and are even edible by humans when treated appropriately to remove the bitter tannins. Those bitter tannins, also found in the bark of oak trees, have their own application in tanning leather.
Oaks belong to the genus Quercus, and include the tree that gives us cork, Quercus suber. Most of the cork produced in the world comes from trees grown in the Mediterranean region in the countries of Portugal, Spain, Algeria, and Morocco. Yamaha uses oak wood in making drums, and drumsticks may also be made of oak, although they do not absorb vibration as well as those made from hickory or maple.
There are more than 50 species of oaks that are native to North America, but some are native to other places, including Europe.  William Cowper, English poet of the 1700s, wrote of the oak: “I might with rev’rence kneel and worship thee, It seems idolatry with some excuse  - When our forefather Druids in their oaks, Imagin’d sanctity…”, indicating a spiritual connection to the great and powerful-seeming tree.
According to Diana Wells, author of “Lives of the Trees”, Druids used oak leaves to make crowns for their sacrificial victims. She goes on to suggest that the name Druid may have originated from the Gaelic word for the oak tree, darach. Wells states that oaks were sacred to many gods. She lists among them, Thor, Jupiter, and El, the Hebrew god.
The white oak, state tree of Illinois, has proved very useful throughout history. Barrels for wine and whiskey are made from white oak, due to the closed cellular structure that makes it water- and rot-resistant. Maturing or fermenting wine in oak adds flavors to the wines such as caramel, vanilla, and toffee, and sometimes gives wine a silky texture.
Oaks are famously associated with their fruit, the acorn. A lot of oak species have lobed leaves, but there is a great deal of variability in leaf shape. Oaks are generally divided into the red oaks and the white oaks, with leaves of the white oak-types having rounded lobes and those of the red oak types having pointed lobes. I think the bur oak has the most interesting acorn, with a burly, fringed cap on a fairly large acorn.
The oak receives a lot of respect for both its usefulness and symbolically. In 2004, the United States Congress passed legislation naming the oak as the National Tree. Oak leaves are used in military insignia, including the awarded oak leaf cluster worn by members of the U.S. Army, Air Force, and Department of Defense for subsequent awards of a Purple Heart, Bronze Star, and other awards of merit.
Oaks have a long, varied, and interesting history. But poems are often short and to the point. If a picture paints a thousand words, then may the image of one magnificent oak pay tribute to them all.