Strength By The Oak Tree

Strength By The Oak Tree

Claudia B. Liedtke

That night to the oak I always did return,

hoping to find the man I'd left there, to know, to learn.

And as I waited, tears streaking down my cheeks,

I realized he'd taken my heart and run to the creek.

Far, far, so far away, oh

a place I could not follow, a place I could not go.

Why oh why, my love, why did you not return?

I wanted to give you freedom, give you something I could not discern.

Why didn’t you come, why didn’t you run?

I needed someone here, someone who knew even the hardest cold of the sun.

Why didn’t you come, to learn how to fly?

I wanted to show you the moon, the stars, the sun, the sky!

So I sit here now, all lonely, all alone,

and I listen to the clouds whisper all earth's sorrows.

I have not yet moved on, given my heart, my soul, too one quite like you.

Up here, in the sky, there is no one who knows what I say when afraid, what I do.

But you, oh you, knew all my deepest secrets,

and took my heart and ran, jumped over the tallest of pickets.

To that oak, every night, I always will return,

in hopes that, one day, I will see the man that left his heart to worsen.

But every day, when light overcomes you and my soul fades away,

I curl up in my safe home, far--oh so far--from the scowling trade.

No one up here likes the idea of a man loving me as you did,

maybe it's your strength, or your face, or the things that you hid.

But I know this one thing, from my home in the sky:

I will remember your heart--oh your heart--to the very day I die.