Sometimes I Feel Like an Oak
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Sometimes I Feel Like an Oak
Sometimes I feel like an aspen,
timid, yet determined and brave.
Even with my trembling leaves,
I stretch to conquer my fears.
Sometimes I Feel Like an Oak joins the two earlier “Sometimes I Feel Like...” books, Sometimes I Feel Like a Fox (www.cmreviews.ca/cm/vol22/no3/sometimesifeellikeafox.html) and
Sometimes I Feel Like a River (www.cmreviews.ca/node/3394). This time, Daniel’s simile comparison is with trees, 12 different types to be specific: maple, birch, cherry blossom, willow, redwood, ash, cedar, aspen, spruce, tamarack, oak and pine. Of the dozen trees, 10 are native to Canada while the cherry blossom and redwood are introduced species.
Each tree is treated on a two page spread with the four line text placed within a white box that has been overlaid on one of Traverse’s acrylic and gouache scenes that features the focal tree. Traverse’s illustrations span a year, beginning and concluding in winter. Each of the free verse stanzas follows a similar pattern with the first line identifying the tree type and the second consisting of adjectives that describe the tree but which could also apply to the state of the poem’s unnamed “I”. The “I” in the stanza’s closing two-line sentence could again be read as factually referring to the tree or as metaphorically describing the child seen in Traverse’s art. A good example would be
Sometimes I feel like a willow,
shivery, sensitive and sad.
I swing and sway in the howling wind,
drooping my long supple branches.
Traverse’s illustration that accompanies this verse reveals a young boy seated against the trunk of a [weeping?] willow tree, its drooping leafy branches flowing over him. Both the boy’s facial expression and his posture speak to his emotional state, that of sadness.
In the book’s penultimate pair of pages, smaller versions of Traverse’s illustration appear, this time accompanied by just two words of text, one being the name of the tree and the second being the adjective that Daniel sees as encapsulating what she sees in that particular tree, with two examples being, “Aspen Daring” and “Willow Sensitivity”. Daniel also invites her readers to answer the question, “What do you see in a tree?”
Daniel’s use of the pronouns “I” and “my” in reference to the trees, as opposed to “it” or “its”, is deliberate for she explains in a closing “Author’s Note”: “Like my Algonquin ancestors, I believe that trees are sentient beings with spirits that can feel things.” She concludes her note by saying, “My hope is that we will greet every tree we meet as we would a person – worthy of kindness, respect, protection and love.” Like the first two books, Sometimes I Feel Like an Oak offers its young readers a glimpse into the traditions of the Anishinaabe culture.
Dave Jenkinson, CM’s editor, lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba.