The Ship of State was not built with
the typical white oak.
(The King of Trees:
one color, pure, and proper,
growing straight and tall,
as good trees should.)
The historic Angel Live Oak is believed to be 1,500 years old. She is 65 feet tall, and has a circumference of over 160 feet.
She was constructed of live oak,
which all the flowers know means “Liberty.”
(They grow nearly anywhere, free and wild,
roots deep,
her monstrous limbs branching out in every possible direction,
wild, expansive and undisciplined.)
The boats built of white oak were shattered
when cannonballs met them,
seemingly strong hulls shattered,
flinging spears of wood fleeing from
eighteen pounds of
iron and violence,
pride and war,
justice and fury.
The U. S. S. Constitution celebrates her bicentennial this year. Her nickname, “Old Ironsides”, was given to her after a stunned sailor shouted, “Huzzah! Her sides are made of iron!” as he watched cannonballs bounce off her hull in the fierce battle against the HMS Guerriere in August of 1812.
But, the same weapons
bounced off the hull
of the ship built of live oak,
the astounded sailors say,
because the U. S. S. Constitution,
built with the strength of liberty,
had heart.
She was acquainted with struggle,
strong enough to absorb pain,
render it powerless,
and not give in.
The ship of state refused to allow
fiery cannonballs to pierce her hull.
Liberty won’t sink so easily.