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.