Here I stand on public display.
In my choice of home,
I have no say!
Wherever my roots travel,
That’s where I lay.

One hundred springs, summers, autumns, and winters — I have survived.
I stand with pride, thankful to be alive.
Filtering pollution and
breathing life into the air is my gift to you.
Keeping the skies a perfect blue.

Birds wake me with their tuneful song. In a chorus, they happily cheep and chirp. A joyful, uplifting start to the day.
They soar, glide, and fly gracefully above my head.
As they search for food to feed their young. Seeking earthworms and even crumbs of bread.
Their wind from their wings cause my leaves to rustle, sending a delightful shiver throughout my spine. A spiritual feeling that is hard to define.
I make myself taller, sending my branches upwards, towards the skies. It is my way of saying thank you to the pigeons, gulls, ravens, and magpies.

I have witnessed many natural disasters over the years,
Floods and fires are the cause of many tears.
Homes that are washed clearly away, cars that are tossed like a feather so light.
The waters gather in vast quantities, rolling through towns and villages at great speed and with great might.
Leaving devastation behind in their wake.

The most worrying for me, though,
Is of course, a fire out of control.
It scorches my bark and burns my soul.
I feel the heat as it flickers and leaps up my trunk.
My bark is blackened, pieces fall to the floor,
In charred chunks.
Sap seeps out of me, bleeding into the soil.
The moss and lichen nearby will at least feed on my oil.

By day, people lay blankets at my feet.
Laying before me their wholesome treats.
Pies, sandwiches, jars of pickles, and slices of meat.
Samosas, wraps, hummus, fruit, and veggie sticks. A smorgasbord of treats.
During times like this, I dream of having a mouth to consume and savour food. It brings joy and laughter, lightening the mood.

Many celebrations of life have been toasted under the shade of my leaves.
My world has hosted whole families struggling to grieve.
On display, cakes of many tastes and sizes
celebrating ages from low to high numbers.
Are all consumed at the base of my lumber.

This year. I am pleased to say, has been uneventful.
And for that, I am truly thankful.

As autumn turns into winter,
I shed my leaves.
Humans retreat to the warmth of their homes.
I stand here, mostly alone.
Waiting for spring to burst its way through the cold. Bringing with it colour and warmth and,
most importantly,
Bringing you back outdoors to spend your days with me.
This is the life of an ancient deciduous tree.

I was walking in the cemetery,
a place where death sits quietly among grass, bush and trees,
where grief is softened by green,
where the living come to forget and remember.

Sunlight filtered through the leaves.
Birdsong floated, indifferent and kind.
Graves stood in silence
some proud, built with stone too heavy for the dead,
others modest, marked by trees,
their roots winding down
into stories no one tells anymore.

Most had flowers.
Bouquets like offerings,
some fresh, some already fading.
Life pretending it can outlast death.

Then I saw it
a tulip, maroon,
its head bowed, its stem bent
not plucked,
but broken while still alive.

It hadn’t been laid there in tribute.
It was growing.
Rooted.
Alive.
And dying.

It leaned on the edge of a grave
like a mourner
who had run out of words.

Its siblings stood tall beside it,
still laughing in color,
still reaching for the sky,
unaware of their fallen one
or perhaps resigned to the order of things.

There was something tragic in its solitude.
A flower that had come to give beauty
and now was dying
on dust already claimed by death.

The irony was sharp
even the beautiful who serve the dead
must die too.

And no one brings flowers
for the flower that dies.

I stood still.
The tulip did not move.
A breeze passed, but it did not rise.
Some deaths happen quietly,
with no audience,
no cry,
just a slow fading
into the soil.

And I wondered
Is this what we are?
Not stone,
not names,
but small, nameless offerings
meant to bloom once,
to bow quietly,
and to vanish
without sound
while the world keeps walking.

With ages we reunite,
And the mercy never dies,
Yet these folks are reckless filthy,
Wrapped with witty,
Legit have no pity,
On our lively city.

Perceiving the woodsman’s wrath ,
grabbing their axes and blades
To increase their sales and trades,
by annihilating our melodious forest tales, In the name of green earth day.
And still we say mercy never dies,
Though we have no sympathy left in us.

Oh Lord, Why has this gay green summer Turned into a grey echoed graveyard?
Where are the gleeful children gone, who once played hide & seek behind the whispering green?

And not reverted to nothing
After everything that has happened

She’d
Play hide and seek
                          By day
Within borders of contentment
              Or knit words without sound

She stayed but one weekend
                                At solstice
                        In a tree house
I never saw her wings
But she’d flown
Leaving only a slice of gingerbread cake
                        Settled under a rowan tree

The oak has
Words of thunder
Divine connections
                      He shall be your double bass

The willow oh the the willow
Her immortality
And vitality
                      She will be your cello

The windswept Hawthorn
Sacrifice's self to
Sweeten souls
                      She will be your viola

The Rowans shall play together
Enchant with
A final spell
                      They will be your violins

And you
You shall conduct the wilderness
With such intensity
                   The world will slow to attend

Meet me at
the sun polished Crater Lake.
In such lavish light,
the fir, pine and hemlock,
are warmly baked.
Woozy trees, drunk on the beauty.
Inebriated with a
moment of the stolen still.
These stoic bark creatures flaunt
pristine emerald and jade frill.
The long desired water
possess's the purest hue.
The deep cobalt blue,
lazily yet hypnotically,
extends an invitation to you.
The lake's shimmered secrets
hold the most ancient truths.
The charcoal mountainous flank
boast's of thousands of years old.
Stirs a riveting lazy pleasure
in my soul's craters.

Wind glided through the forest ringing like bicycle bells as it blesses the leaves with its presence,
Making a magical sound.
The canopy moves in a synchronised dance
Waving goodbye to the breeze.
There's a harmony and a melody that can never be overlooked.
The woods come together in this special movement creating wonder for those on earth.
The pine trees have practised their rehearsal a lot of times
And the cold wind is their music.
Some pieces of wood that are now painting the forest floor, strewn all over were once giant creatures greeting the sky.
Now they mould into the soil below..
But the circle of life goes on as it often does.
These tree barks are now home to ants and caterpillars and insects and tiny creatures with no home.
Even after a tree's death, it can provide life to many beings.
Little vines creep up over the brown on the forest floor, making sure that the dead tree barks don't feel lonely.
Everything humans do is for themselves.
We give love because we expect love and loneliness is our imperfection.
But nature teaches us that the entire forest is one,
Breathing together, living together, dying together
And even after death, growing together.