COMMON DOES YOU NO JUSTICE ALDER Well, at least maddened Sweeney had a good word to say for you: ‘Delightful is thy…
OLD APPLE For eighty years it stood Weathered, withered At the far end of our garden, Keeping watch.…
THE GRAVEYARD ASH I’m watching you. Meeting. Singing. Canoodling. Arguing. You’re small, but infinitely beautiful. I yearn to run.…
YNYS ENLLI APPLE TREE Flat to the salt hewn brick, The Mother tree calls Into the lighthouse’s foghorn yawn, Past…
DAY’S END AND THE BANANA TREE, JAKARTA (AKHIR HARI DAN POHON PISANG, JAKARTA) Wearied light pushes the thick air past competing calls to prayer and motorway roar while stub-tailed…
THE TWT* BEECH I have watched the see-saw of lives across time. First, the dare-you children scaling my steely…
BEECH (FAGUS SY LVATICA) I can’t creep up on you Beech Tree, You hear me scrunch through decades of disintegrated…
HIGHER CONSCIOUSNESS It amused my daughters that a town in distant south-east England shared the name we gave…
THE STRONG AND SENSITIVE TYPE I made my mark on them. Impressed by centuries, catkins and burs, The Borough of Stockport…
RHAMNUS CATHARTICA Ingleton, Delamere Hay, Dean Road trips Boat trips Hikes Broken but looking up Scarce and still…
FAMILY TREE Three children, from days gone mouths stretched wide in glee Scattered, posing for the camera on…
DAKPLATAAN, NORTH HOLLAND Back in Aprilyou seemed almost dead smooth skeleton starfish balancing on a single foot Stretching four…
THE LAST OLD ELM You stand Raking skywards As generations To and fro To and fro Absorbed in daily busyness…
DRIFT, WOOD Hiding in plain sight, nettle-bound at a crossroads Some flowers remain, drifting like smoke on dead…
SEVEN SISTERS Taiko drums warble And babble As the forest nymphs Cavalcade down the mountain To take their…
IN RICHMOND PARK A HAZEL ‘TREE’ Interloper Shrub Bush Overgrown weed They might be right The oaks you see I’m short Slim…
LADY-IN-WAITING Overshadowed by gossiping poplars, crowded by muttering oaks, in Lagan Meadows I almost disregard you. Your…
PILGRIMS The original pilgrim stalks the retreating ice, trailed by a carpet of crack-nuts, a treasure map…
LORD OF THE FOREST’S LAMENT The sky is my Father. My mother, earth. I grew up to let light between forest…
A FOOT STEPS FROM THE ORIENTAL HORNBEAM In a Belfast park, bug bitten beneath your sprawl I crawl inside you guessing the twist…
JUNIPER SKY ROCKET A queen and her baby joey in pouch Afraid alone in motherhood Persevering assailant sky, taller…
AT THE MARGINS Along the valley, glacier receding beyond, icefall crack cuts the wind whispering the past that trodden…
COMMON/PRIVATE Paired, my trees mark gates of the old workhouse (now private residential streets, like many) surround…
THE GOLDEN AGE OF THE FICUS MACROPHYLLA* Through pale-moon filtered branches drifts a chorus of golden fluid syllables: the Guadalquivir streaming into Atlantic…
WITHIN Fern’s filigree, looping lianes, wintry light through waving leaves. Dappled, wild-beaten, generous bark, tīekes’ flutter-dance around.…
PEAR Dedicated to goddesses, a tree of life, I bring fecundity, fertility, fidelity when planted. Symbol of…
THE AIR WE BREATHE Wanting a view, we uprooted you Found you a corner, then heard your bark whisper: “As…
CRACKED FOUNDATIONS White man proclaimed the state by the Old Gum Tree, though the Kaurna were there long…
THE RED THREAD “I’ve been waiting for you” says young Rowan, “the calendar winds said you would come, salt…
“WE HAVE NOT JUST PLANTED A WOODLAND, WE ARE WATCHING AN IDEA GROW.” From relict Caledonian forest: The seed of an idea The pride of a community. Rising from…
I COULD HAVE BEEN A CONTENDER… I might have been a cathedral beam, the keel and prow of a plunging galleon, a…
SPINDLE Whorl, drop, draw. Fingers tease, Lips release, Gravity’s pull transforms soft chaos. A scrubby shrub. The…
A SYCAMORE IN THE ASYLUM PARK It was meant to be a humane place. They even planted trees. One looks like the…
IN TARZAN TREE beyond Goosegog Bush, we crunch cola cubes and dangle like catkins in sharp-toothed leaves. Lighter than…
WITCH’S BROOM Lost lovers once etched a heart around their initials. Your reply: to graft. To annul, unhurriedly.…
PATRIARCH A bald crown, sideways stoop, shattered limbs: This old boy could go at any time, Collapsing…
