Nigel Humphreys
The Beech Tree
Bluebells and anemones splashed
the wood, spiralled round
one beech expansive, pivotal
regnant
a rope hung from it like a bell-pull
its open leaves shielded from
the days' vicissitudes
and when they fell
a mosaic of rust-red tesserae
fountained in the wind,
pooled.
In my youth I approached it
with a kind of love
clambered into its bosom
knowing every foothold, the mettle
of every bough that took my weight
how far I could go and what sights
I would see. Higher and higher.
It trounced fear
but I outgrew it,
later, abstracted, I passed it
every day on my way to work.
Unembraced, it faded
like garret wallpaper.
Now it has fallen to a night wind,
become that intense patch on a wall
where a picture had hitherto
hung a life time,
wreathed limbs, sapless, ripped
block my path.
The woodmen will take it away
lichen will veil and the forest will
grow back as it had never been.
But I remain rooted by its void
and there is nowhere
to hang a rope.
Page(s) 24
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