A tree contemplates its own mortality

It was like,
How shall I put it?
Like the first lightening strike
Or the moment a storm cloud bursts?
No, much closer.

The first swing of an axe
Sending a convulsion,
An electrical charge
Through the forest floor
Through every fibre.

How can you prepare
For the as yet unknown?

And when a light space opened up
Touching the forest floor,
Where the shady things grow,
I knew then
That there would be no rest.

An ear to the earth, X


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How the leaves learnt to speak

It is the wind
that gives us

our voices we
chattering leaves

are full of whispers
sighing , breathing

leaving the forest
ripe with rumours

as we collectively
exhale.



An ear to the earth
IX

The secret in the soil

What goes on up there above in the light
space we have no names for or know
what shape such seeds take on where
our skin is exposed to all the elements
suffering every condition yet we give
seeds life but are not life itself me we
us soil and the seeds that seek shelter
all manner of things have grown here
in the dark in the turmoil of our acidity
and alkali seeds in stony layers
between which roots thrust their searching tips
prising and worming deep into our soul
and where only the drip
drip of liquids
penetrates deeper and deeper still.

.

An ear to the earth, VIII

The conspiracy of ivy

By the field's edge we grew
Long time undisturbed
Edged by ploughing
Observed the breaking clods
Long time looked over
A distant edged distance
Watched the sowing
The reaping
The ploughing
The sowing
And all the time
About our trunks
Grew a deeper green
Than we'd ever seen
Creeping up
Stealthily,
Slowly,
Slowly,
Suffocating.

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Poem VII from the collection
An ear to the earth

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A butterfly alights on a leaf

Why do you copy in our dead colours
When we struggle so hard for life
Even last year's leaves still wave and rattle
Yes, even we saw the winter through.

How easily you melt into our surroundings
Sunning your wings just long enough
To alert us here of the dangers there...
Just the thought of it now makes us all shudder.

from An ear to the earth
VI

The waking sensations of brackens and long grasses

Gaps appear when dark descends,
When the nighly sun is up,
Pushed between up brackens and long grasses.

Tramping on, me
Snuffling for seeds and berries.

We sleep soundly, undisturbed.
We rise up from earthly-dark earth
And simply unfurl each frond.

Sometimes a marking passing
Remains, me scenting soft earth.

Undisturbed, but for waking sensations
Of a not-seen having brushed against
Our stalks, caressingly.

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from An ear to the earth III

The Vision of the Oak

Listen
A measureless time the deepest of visions came to me
When all human voices rested in sleep
It seemed I beheld the mystery of the Wood.
It was a marvel touched with rays of golden light
Shining like jewels stretching to the four corners of the forest
Radiating throughout eternity. I observed it
Saw the fiery glow in the glory tree.
It ran through all creation a beacon of splendour
A magnificent, perfect light. And through that radiance
I was able to witness when it first began.

And as I began to grow there
The most ancient of ancient trees began to speak.
'It was long ago but still I remember
My roots at the forest's edge.
I too saw the world's edge the light of the world
Throwing out rays of perfect light
Before the sky darkened and the Earth was once again
Cast in shadow veiled under clouds.
I witnessed it all.'

Vision, strength of my oaken heart deliver this message
That my soul is urging me upwards
I hardly dare move. Gradually my solitude is relieved
But still I have to endure the sensation of longing.
The time will come for me to honour
The whole glorious creation from the canopy above
To the ground below worshiping this beacon
More than all other trees. My life's hope
Is to seek out that triumphant Wood
And become that most glorious of ancient trees.


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