This
poem grew like the oak – slowly, unevenly and to a much bigger size than I
envisaged. I fought to write it in blank verse but the rhymes just kept
asserting themselves so, in the end, I let them have their way. The poem is
nothing like I intended it to be and it leaves me feeling strangely uneasy. Perhaps
I need to go and sit under the tree and read it.
The Wyre Oak
I heard
tell of a timeless oak
That
for centuries has stood
By a
long-forgotten path
Where
once, they say, there was a wood.
The old
ones call it Wyre Oak;
Its age
is such that no-one can
Tell me
how it came by that
Or when
the legend first began.
It was
inevitable, I knew,
That
soon we would be called to meet,
So on a
strange, snow-sprinkled day
When
startled Spring and Winter greet
Each
other with cold courtesy,
But
neither of them can yet agree
Who is
to stay, or to depart,
I went to find this long-lost tree.
I knew
the path I had to take,
Where few
will ever walk again
Along
the briar-barriered way,
Where
fox and hare play hunt-the-wren
Amongst
the scattered, rotting stumps
Of fallen
and uprooted trees,
That
form self-grown memorials -
Destined
to mark their own decease.
Just as
I wondered where to search,
How far
abroad I’d have to look,
I saw a
faintly-beaten track
Not
made, I knew, by human foot,
And
following its wavering course,
It led
me to an open space
Where, just
like a watching hare,
The
tree stood in imposing grace.
Could
this, I wondered, be the spot
Where
all the creatures of the wild
Are
drawn to when the moon is full,
Unshriven
and unreconciled?
And was
it also, long ago,
The
place where human lovers came
Who
knew the talismanic charm
Of
ancient trees by ancient lanes?
For
just how many lives of men,
How
many autumns, winters, springs;
How
many turnings of the earth
And
drowsy winter slumberings
Have
you stood firm upon the earth?
Ah, you
were alive when they,
With a stroke
of levelling axe,
Felled the
tyrant majesty.
And
standing in your shadow, now
I
realise with growing fear
How
fragile we must seem beside
This
overwhelming might of years,
As the
cruel chaos of our lives
Time
exposes, day by day,
Who
have no deeply-planted roots
To
anchor us in nurturing clay.
But
while the span of man is short,
Time is
kinder, far, to trees,
Asking
nothing in return,
For freely-given
centuries.
And
blackbirds, chaffinches and owls
Who see
your mighty power unfurled,
Know
you are more than just a tree;
Here
and now, you’re a whole world.
