Arkansas: Suzanne Underwood Rhodes

Suzanne Underwood Rhodes is the poet laureate of Arkansas, serving from 2022-25.

Photo: Stephen Ironside, Iron Lotus Creative

Old Wizard Oak

His brown, wizened ears stay affixed

to the branches all the way to April.

He hears the icy clatter of the first freeze

that drives the squirrels off to huddle in secret,

and then, when the branches pillow with snow,

he hears not a single bird, nothing but a white hush

and the woman in the house waking the fire

to chase her lonely chill, hears her talking to herself

or an unseen other as she wraps her shawl

over shoulders too small for such weight of loss.

He can even hear her blink away tears,

and he feels for her, would tell her

the crocuses she planted by the tree

are already warming in their corms deep

in the earth, that his brown old ears

will be green, come late spring, and so will the world.

But his voice was given to creatures that go.

His art is listening, to sighs, songs, and cycles of time.

It was said long ago that he who listens

loves most and draws all hearts to his own.

from The Perfume of Pain (Alabaster Leaves Publishing, 2024)

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