The Walnut Tree
What arrogance, ignorance,
led me to believe
that planting a tree was a simple affair;
Just put it in the soil
out of prevailing winds and frost pockets
and say: Grow!
Watch over it, from storm or drought
like a child, in early years
ensuring it free sky and space access,
safe from pollutants, developers,
blood-sports and lads on quad-bikes,
depredations of bracken and sheep,
the tree-munching roe-deer too.
It and it’s dead predecessor didn’t
and don’t like the acid soil round there,
don’t like the view, the company,
for all the raw beauty, seclusion;
only badger, squirrel, hare and silence
accompany the little river singing
and kites wafting over the oak-wood.
The fallen old house, it’s crumbled walls
subsiding, along with giant beeches
toppled by rare hurricanes and too-thin topsoil over the cambrian bedrock.
Man tried to live here on the edge,
dwelling on and off, for small periods,
re-building the rickety foot-bridge
often swept-away by flash floods
in these steep upland foothills.
Rebuilding the vicarage by faith and necessity, over the generations,
along with barns and cobblestone track
attested by local word of mouth,
by folklore, church and archived records
evidenced by hummocks, earth-mounds with ridges where damson, hawthorn and crab-apple delineated boundaries;
and gravity-fed water leaks from boggy
springs.
Lime mortar on river-smoothed stones
over the years, loses its grip
assuring demise of centuries of homes
abetted by wind, rain or fire.
Habitation traces back to Druid times;
a rare megalith still standing sentinel,
to sacred times forgotten, oddly alone
while others, medievally toppled
disappear from sight,
to occasionally re-emerge by chance, subsidence, dowsing or dredging.
So what does the walnut want,
too spoilt or tamed for the ancient wilds?
wanting fair orchards, gracious estates,
more southerly sunshine?
For all my devoted determination
it won’t be woman-handled,
taken for granted, plonked in backwoods
on the assumption it does what it’s told.
Grow.
No!