CANOPY - Secrets of the Trees

Fallen Comrade (A tribute to the ‘Thomas Hardy Tree.’)

The night watchman is toppled. Encircled by death, he now lies himself devoid of breath, a lone stump staring up to his heaven.

I realise never again will he hear those bells peal nor rattle his leaves to the wind’s playful fight.

His bowers have bent to shelter whispering lovers and rain-drowned wanderers; to peer; to overhear; to keep wise counsel. To nod his approval at knee-bent hopefuls and shield office lunchers from their urban hotchpotch; to exhale; to snatch up the gale; to offer solace; an arm hooked round the solitary mourner, claws of gnarl knitted together with clenched grief.

Rings shot through with echoes. Never spoken. Who weeps for you, old guard?

And St Pancras sits, thoughtfully, silently, aching for his comrade whilst Hardy tuts from the churchyard corner.

He knows this is the way of things.

Evergreen

Long ago discharged, I revisit the tree at the mental health centre, lover-tender touch the keloids of its burls.

Higher, its leaves are smooth-edged. I once presumed two species - one, with its spikes and clinginess, the well-established other.

Since, I've learned a holly grows sharp lower to the ground for self-protection - it can leaf from one body a spectrum.

In this garden, thin platitudes are screwed to a backless bench - seek and you shall find, hasty climbers have sudden falls.

The tree remains as mute and patient as an elephant's knee, its branches an easy ladder.

Here, small Picassos, are the bark eyes I remember that have borne untellable witness to the ones who pause to lock/unlock their quick-getaway bikes, search for fresh tissues, call mum.

Amongst sap-bright lichen a V between two eyes invokes an owl who I imagine circling sadly the crossed boxing up of a single swerved gaze, a patient's mismatched socks.

Darling, the owl (allowing me to stroke her wings) might say - here are berries for the darkest days. What's clipped for the taking grows back.

Death of a Veteran - South London 1973

Pollarded by countrymen, Spared by Victorians, And Edwardians, as London sprawled. A soot black, lichen less, stag horned giant, Rooted in sticky toffee clay. Rising above advancing, Waves of terraces of terraces And buses, the 12, 176 and 185.

A sapling in a hedgerow, Shielded from grazing cattle, Lammas leafed and oak appled On a terraced hillside field. There, silent, but set aglow, By the distant Great Fire.

Tall enough now for roosting rooks, And in the fading light A part of Palmer’s ‘delicious dream’ Intervisible with Blake’s infant visions Of angels in trees, On Peckham Rye.

Chimney smoke pea soupers, In time, acidified the bark. Luftwaffe photographed, Witness of the Blitz. By now, A relic of sloughed rural skin.

A teenage boy, Smoking and brooding in his nest unseen, Where the trunk branched And spread, loftier than St Pauls below. Blackcap, chiff chaff, perched above And once, a pied flycatcher, On route to Welsh woods.

They said plant a tree in 73 But they took one down, For a bungalow called Zennor, In time, shaded and coloured By a flowering cherry tree.

4Ever

The estate agent insisted: the blockwork garage had to go. Shruti came round to help. “I need to bash something with a sledgehammer, Dad,” she said “you’ll be doing me a favour.” “Dada built that garage—” “I know, before he even had a car.”

I’d steal samosas from the kitchen and squeeze into the space behind the garage to eat them. The silvery trunk of the sycamore grew too close for my chunky brothers to get through. My sisters were afraid of spiders. It was my place. Mine and yours.

Shruti swung the sledgehammer again and again. Dust and chips of concrete exploded everywhere.

The tree is massive now and its bark isn’t smooth and strokable any more. It’s pitted and crusty, and presses up against the garage, bulging over the top like Dada’s belly over his belt. Like mine now.

Shruti struck again. The wall fell. Part of the trunk which had been against the blocks was revealed, naked, flat. Where it had kissed the cold concrete, there was a carved heart, clumsy but beautiful. A4K4Ever.

I put my hand over it, surprised, reminded of another belly, naked and flat.

“Did you bring your girlfriends behind the garage, Dad? You old dog!” Shruti laughed. “It says ‘4Ever’. You should call. You need someone to cook for you. But take her somewhere nicer than this, OK?”

So here I am. Messaging you.

“Hello Andrew, my name is Kamal. I think we were at school together.”

Tree

I'm bashful under yesterday's plastic bag veil / Captive apples bathe in rainwater and filth / A monolith of ancient aches / Your city brain too fugged to see my smugness underneath / A sundress / More corsets of plastic / no nest / My chest bursting to be Hirsted / Pickled / preserved / worshipped

The Forest

The forest remembers a time when it stretched across the entire land, almost to the sea. Wild bears had once lived there and back, back even further into the folded pockets of time, large, tongue-flicking lizards, nicknamed Dragones by early menfolk. Creatures forgotten by all, except the forest. It has a long memory. On this dazzling, blue-sky day, it is quieter than usual. Only the insects are loud, thrumming with energy. On the outskirts of the forest, a tired king is limping and heaving his bulk away from the hunt. He stops to rest, placing a thickly-ringed hand on the bark of an Elm and tries to catch his breath. He is not himself today. His mind is filled with images – a young girl, lifting her face to the sky as his men drag away her mother into that deep, shaded part where they would be shielded from view. Had the girl called out to the birds? Or to God? He can’t remember now. Neither had responded. But he can’t shake the image of her upturned face. Other scenes surface and he wipes the sweat from his brow as if to erase them. The trees seem to quiver and for a moment he hears their whisperings “We remember”. It takes all his strength to pull his hand from the Elm’s trunk. He lurches back towards his men and his horses and his house. The forest watches and wonders – who will be keeper of memories when its trees have all gone?

Jacaranda: Blue On Blue

Every week she passes from the clinic in Kampala to rest awhile in my arms and marvel at the sky through the veil of my bloom; blue on blue.

The southern wind speaks through my branches: “Stay little sister. You have many miles before home, before Lake Victoria laps at your feet like a puppy.

You carry medicine for mother. Lay it down. I will stay guard. Lay on my moss carpeted bole and sleep, while I scatter my trumpets to take home as a gift.”

I have looked for her for many days now. I know the meaning of her absence. Mother no longer has need of medicine. The girl is spared her ten-hour round journey.

She will walk to the shore, and throw my blossom into the lake of her ancestors, in remembrance of a mother, and for a childhood gone; blue on blue.

I, Jacaranda, offer shelter to the weary. Many arms wrap round my old, gnarled skin, and many tears nourish the sap in my veins.

Many stories of fear and loss drop from little lips in the quiet of my shade. Small faces press against my wrinkled bark for comfort only the inanimate can give. I hear and learn much.

I take census of the sick and dying, numbered by my pretty flowers, strewn over the dust and rocks, shearing off the breeze, or washed up on lake shores; blue on blue.

Trees Are Poems Sung by the Wind

Alder

The wood of this tree doesn’t rot when under water; on the contrary, it gets tougher and stronger.

I take the path we always took, through the wooden planks making something like a bridge, my legs guide me, knowing the gaps. The same gorgeous silence, only now unshared.

Ash

Ash leaves fall when they are still green.

They say that the best you can do is to hold their hand. It’s funny how at the end we go back to such a simple thing – holding someone’s hand. I remember walking into the park after the doctor told me and hugging the ash tree we used to study together, and howling, and wanting to tear all its leaves.

Aspen

The rippling leaves of this tree give it its name: quaking aspen, as they tremble and flutter in the slightest breeze.

Can you feel all this movement? you said.

I look at the leaves – an orchestra of sound and movement. I hear you whisper through the branches. Everything shifts, everything changes. And we can’t stop that. We can only go with it.

Birch

Their sound is gentle and soothing and can be heard even in winter when the branches are bare.

Trees are poems sung by the wind, you once said.

I listen.

When the Bough Holds Strong

It was early Midsummer morning when the boy was first made safe here. Wrapped in the softness of cotton, snuggled in his nest-like moses basket, lodged amongst the strong limbs of the mightiest oak on Ikenham Common. Sleeping soundly, the gentlest of breezes rustling leaves into whispered lullabies.

The one who left him stood nearby for hours, reluctant to depart until her desperate, selfless act was safely complete. She scored a heart in the bark as a token of eternal love. Her rocked footprints sank deep into lush dewy grass, tracing anxious reversing steps across the park lawn.

Found, adopted, cherished.

As a child, he climbed and swung amongst those parental branches: instinctively, unknowingly, at home here.

He courted his love here, composing poetry, adding their initials to that curious heart-shape on the trunk. On warm days, they picnicked in its shade; on wet days, its canopy gave shelter; in autumns, they rolled upon a russet carpet.

Until, last fall, seeds of a new generation.

Yesterday was Midsummer’s Eve again. An unseasonal tempest raged, merciless rain hammered, twigs torn into razors, slicing into a melancholy sky. A bolt of light reached down from above. The tree stood firm. Its boughs held strong, its roots prevailed. The love heart was unscathed.

Yet, my own heart chose that moment to depart.

Henceforth, though I no more stand here watching, I shall be the breeze and sunshine, the fresh buds every spring.

My son, some roots grow deeper than you will ever know.

Warning: Dangerous Tree

says the sign tacked to a barbed wire fence as if the singular anger of a pollarded old oak could be contained months after it passed on

as if the wrath of a mass plantation shackled by stanchions and slipped into plastic tubes could be excused, as if the rage of the lonely

front garden acer could be easily explained, as if you could justify the lopped off limbs of an ash desperate to bridge a tarmac span

or the indignity of topiary inflicted on yew, cropped into outsize lollipops and peacocks, as if being labelled scrub or urban furniture

weren’t enough or the slavery of being unable to escape the chainsaw, the pain of being stubbed and dehorned, your crown hat-racked

and topped, pruned wounds sun-scalded, and invaded, plagued by pests and disease, as if a tree didn’t already hold enough rain

Sucking

Our mum’s sitting in the park breastfeeding the baby. Tuft of dark hair, alien eyes.

Won’t they want him back? Emily whispers. I mouth be quiet to my little sister.

We sit like any family on an outing. Mum fondling the monkey’s oversize ears. Whopping enormous like mine, that get whacked regularly when she’s cross with me.

As the monkey gulps and swallows, breathes out puffs of air, makes “k-ah” sounds, Mum stares down at the flat face and muzzle.

Can we keep it as a pet? Emily asks. Will the zoo mind? I slap her leg, but it’s too late. Mum shoos us from the bench, crouches over the baby monkey. Growls softly, while she strokes its shadowy fur.

I start to cry, claw tears away so Emily won’t see.

I walk Emily to the playground, to the swing with rusting chains. I push her higher and higher from tree to tree above hugging woods, so she won’t see Mum nuzzling the monkey.

Mum used to call me her little monkey.

That was before.

Emily’s mouth makes an O shape and puffs out whee, as she touches marshmallow clouds with her Clarks-tipped toes.

The monkey clings to Mum’s belly.

I know when our Mum’s milk dries, when the sucking pain of losing the baby with the tuft of blonde hair and blue eyes goes away, I’ll be her little monkey again.

And we’ll sit in the park, safe under the trees, like a small troop on a day out.

Deidre

He could see the tree from the window of his prison cell.

“Betula pendula,” the teacher said when he drew it in art class. “Silver birch. It’s associated with love and new beginnings.”

He called the tree Deirdre after his grandmother. At night, her white bark glowed in the security lights that shone down on barbed wire and metal gates, softening their daytime retributions. There had only been one tree on the Council Estate where he grew up and no one had cared about it. It had been set fire to, urinated on and ignored. It wasn’t important. Drugs and cars and girls were important, not trees.

Now trees were important. Now when the perimeters of his world were reduced to a prison cell, the silver birch had something he no longer had: freedom to bend with the wind, freedom to feel the warmth of the sun, freedom to stretch roots deep into the earth. He thought about the birds that sheltered inside her leafy canopy and the bats and owls who visited at night. He thought about all the men she had seen come and go whilst growing quietly in the grey grim grounds of Her Majesty’s Prison.

Every time he looked at the tree he felt the sap of hope rise inside him. Every night he said goodnight to her before he went to sleep. And as he slept, she watched over him, whispering her secrets into the dark: love and new beginnings, love and new beginnings.