I SAW IN LOUISIANA A LIVE OAK GROWING

The following poem is one of my favourites, It goes out to my husband & my friends & family whom I treasure.

I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing

All alone stood it & the moss hung down from the branches,

Without any companions it grew there uttering joyous leaves of dark green,

And it's look, rude, undending, lusty, made me think of myself,

But I wonder'd how it could utter joyous leaves standing alone there without its friend near,

For I knew I could not,

And I broke off a twig with a certain number of leaves upon it,

And twined around it a little moss,

And brought it away, & I have placed it in sight, in my room,

it is not needed to remind me as of my own dear friends,

(For I believe lately I think of little else than of them,)

Yet it remains to me a curious token, it makes me think of manly love,

For all that, & though the live-oak glistens there in Louisiana solitary in a wide flat space,

Uttering joyous leaves all its life without a friend a lover near,

I know very well I could not.

-WALT WHITMAN