Urban Beech Tree II - Sandra Horn
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”
Urban Beech Tree II
I wonder who it was, what they were thinking
when they planted you, a forest giant
by a city road? You were a stripling then,
an ornament for this suburban plot.
With time, you’d overtop the wall
and charm the passers-by in spring
with soft green leaves and later, autumn reds.
Was that how it was meant to be?
That wall went long ago, nudged over
by your swelling trunk, your mounded roots,
and still you grew and stretched – over the pavement,
garden and the road, an inconvenience,
shedding your leaves and twigs where buses stop.
Pollarders were summoned in to tame you, maim you.
Look at you now – your branches lopped,
to ugly, flat-topped stumps, last year’s dead leaves
a coat of rags and tatters. Concrete plugs
your rotted heart. You might be dying, dead -
but every naked twig bears promises of spring.
Soon you’ll be crowned with downy leaves,
soft green to amber, copper, ruby red,
to swathe your sorry amputated limbs.
I’ve watched you now for thirty years or more,
marvelled at how, in winter nakedness
your upswept branches hold on to the light
an auspice of your surge of stubborn life.
Sandra Horn is an award-winning children’s author and poet. Her work has been published in anthologies and in literary magazines.
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