A Red Oak Tree
Slideshow

Autumn comes to the bus plaza in Williamsburg

I am grateful to a red oak tree in the bus plaza near my home in Williamsburg. I began to like it in the early summer when it was still green. There are trees in the plaza of many kinds; otherwise, it is all new concrete. On a recent autumn morning, coming home from the doctor’s, I still had not had breakfast. As I crossed the plaza, I saw that this oak had changed color, and I forgot that I was hungry. As I looked through the viewfinder of my camera at the tree from many angles, from a distance, from close up, I saw the red oak tree in relation to many things -- a spattering of shadows on the concrete, a line of parked cars, a man walking in the distance, the elevated rushing by. That night, as I was coming home again from the Poetry class, the plaza was dark, but I was able to find my red oak tree, and say to it as I saw it, “Thank you.”