Yew Needle - Victoria Gatehouse
One of the Top 40 submissions in our 2023 Urban Tree Festival writing competition.
Yew Needle
“There are days you dream
of rooting all over again
like this churchyard yew -
the red-brown scales of its bark
softly flaking away, the smooth
spiralled into the rough.
There are days you could lay
new rings around an outgrown heart,
leave all these dark whisperings
to the spiders and moths.
You dream of supple branches
returning to the crackle of earth
to root trunks all over again.
Time to slip this choker of aril beads,
take up a green and dangerous needle
and stitch yourself a new skin.”
Victoria Gatehouse
Victoria Gatehouse is an award-winning poet, a children’s writer, a scientist and a walker. She loves to spend time in the presence of trees.