She came to me all smiling
Asked to visit my friend the tree
She said she had a gift for it
And I thought some for me
I thought she meant go walking
And share a drink of wine
We went to the oak grove
Secret and sacred the place to me
I saw something not right then
I felt uncertainty

I had taken her to the special place
Where there's a glitch in time
I hadn't thought that she meant evil
Or that the place was mine
I had tended some occasionally
Then she took out the wine
She asked me which was special
As the One I stood beside
I indicated another
Knowing that One must hide

But the one I indicated
Was sapling of the first
It was my child doing the doing
I felt my heart would burst
When she poured the wine along it
And it ran down like blood
I had to walk away then and
I wandered round the wood.
I felt complicity
As no mother should

I walked for a long time
Then circled round to see
What she'd done to those I loved
She was speaking to the tree
I saw her from a distance gaze
Into branches I knew well
I knew that it was wrongdoing
That she'd made some kind of spell
I wondered why she waited
What she'd said I couldn't tell

I went and stood in trepidation
By the One I had betrayed
The summer sun was shining and
It's branches gently swayed
I asked why are we lingering
She said she must hang around
The tree must give a gift to her
But nothing had she found
In sadness I within the grove
On that fairy mound

I looked up to my old old friend
In regret and pain and love
And a tiny twig came to my hand
From the branches far above
I held it and I wondered
What kind of deal she'd done
She snatched it from my fingers
Like a prize that she had won
I told her it was not the tree
Where her magic had begun

Time passed she was successful
All her wishes did come true
But oh my friend how I regret
What became of you
I often went to see you
Often too apologised
Your sapling was so tall and strong
You so vulnerable beside
Black fungus on your branches
I saw there your demise

I had to tell the woodman
One must be taken out
Or we'd lose the whole oak grove
All the trees from roundabout
I went to my daughter
I said the tree has died
I went to where my friend had stood
Where remnants all strewn lie
She said it matters not to me
Afterwards I cried

Although my blood is in her veins
She's no longer friend or kin
I will not speak or smile at her
Or trust in her again