Giving Thanks - Charis Fox

Long-listed written pieces of 250 words or under submitted to the 2021 Urban Tree Festival writing competition on the theme of “trees close to you”

Giving Thanks

Dart
between
cars, seeping unseen smog. Hold my breath;
by lorries coughing clouds of rusty smoke.
Turn left. Through a gap between brick buildings. Cross the stone

bridge spanning a river clogged with beer cans and face masks.

Tarmac gives way to

Earth

Oaks

Sycamores

Birch

Aspen

wait eternally

Follow
the hum of bees
to my hiding place

beneath the boughs of the

Common lime;

the words disclose as much about her as

Homo sapien reveals about me.
They don’t tell the passer-by that
She has known this woodland for one hundred years; when

Pine martens and
Dormice were abundant and
Ghost orchids still appeared like jewels beneath the canopy;

Before we laid claim.
Choking
Slicing
Her home into a sliver of what it once was.

Yet still she stands poised in meditation, arms reaching towards the sun, lower limbs brushing blades of grass

Cradled in her roots,
With the parasitic presence of a missing piece

Swelling,
Seizing every part of me,
I have
shaken and cried and asked why?

In response
I have
heard

Blackbirds

trill

Leaves

shiver

I have

followed

Ants
disappearing into cracks I could not see from standing

I have felt

Sunlight
dance between branches

I have

Breathed

Today. A joyless confetti of coloured foil wrappers lie scattered over her roots. I pluck

The
Discarded
Responsibilities

of Others
And hold them in my pocket.

Sink into a carpet of

Grass

Humus
Leaves the colour of unripe pears

Inhale

The perfume of rain-moistened moss

and

Give thanks

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Charis Fox lives in Leicestershire and loves exploring the British countryside with a flask of coffee.

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