WITCH’S BROOM Lost lovers once etched a heart around their initials. Your reply: to graft. To annul, unhurriedly.…
IN TARZAN TREE beyond Goosegog Bush, we crunch cola cubes and dangle like catkins in sharp-toothed leaves. Lighter than…
A SYCAMORE IN THE ASYLUM PARK It was meant to be a humane place. They even planted trees. One looks like the…
I COULD HAVE BEEN A CONTENDER… I might have been a cathedral beam, the keel and prow of a plunging galleon, a…
CRACKED FOUNDATIONS White man proclaimed the state by the Old Gum Tree, though the Kaurna were there long…
THE AIR WE BREATHE Wanting a view, we uprooted you Found you a corner, then heard your bark whisper: “As…
WITHIN Fern’s filigree, looping lianes, wintry light through waving leaves. Dappled, wild-beaten, generous bark, tīekes’ flutter-dance around.…
THE GOLDEN AGE OF THE FICUS MACROPHYLLA* Through pale-moon filtered branches drifts a chorus of golden fluid syllables: the Guadalquivir streaming into Atlantic…
AT THE MARGINS Along the valley, glacier receding beyond, icefall crack cuts the wind whispering the past that trodden…
LORD OF THE FOREST’S LAMENT The sky is my Father. My mother, earth. I grew up to let light between forest…
PILGRIMS The original pilgrim stalks the retreating ice, trailed by a carpet of crack-nuts, a treasure map…
DAKPLATAAN, NORTH HOLLAND Back in Aprilyou seemed almost dead smooth skeleton starfish balancing on a single foot Stretching four…
FAMILY TREE Three children, from days gone mouths stretched wide in glee Scattered, posing for the camera on…
THE STRONG AND SENSITIVE TYPE I made my mark on them. Impressed by centuries, catkins and burs, The Borough of Stockport…
HIGHER CONSCIOUSNESS It amused my daughters that a town in distant south-east England shared the name we gave…
THE TWT* BEECH I have watched the see-saw of lives across time. First, the dare-you children scaling my steely…
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 GRAVEYARD ASH I’m watching you. Meeting. Singing. Canoodling. Arguing. You’re small, but infinitely beautiful. I yearn to run.…
OLD APPLE For eighty years it stood Weathered, withered At the far end of our garden, Keeping watch.…
