WILD WOOD

Tree roots tough as knotted ropes,
intricate as brains, bind and gather
bones of men and beasts
laid down through centuries.

Who knows if seed or tree came first,
all that matters is that acorns,
beech-mast, ash keys, fall
and germinate next spring,
grow tall in time to sough in breezes,
beat in storms, make canopies
of summer shade and, in time, fall.

For all this forests are easy to destroy,
yet when I touch their soil my fingers strike.

Robin Ford

THE HOOKES WAY HAWTHORN

Scrawny old hagthorn;
Sheared by the autumn wind
For fraternizing with the Rowan.
Still, a tree for all that,
Standing in a collar of soil;
A tangle of barbed branches:
The kids don’t mess with you.
Past shame, your urban scars
On show for all to see.
Grey and orange lichens
Have patterned on your bark.
Whiskery shoots sprout out from your base.

You have no scarlet haws now:
Two Wood Pigeons came for breakfast.
Gnarled and wizened
But your spirit is strong.
You’ll come back in the spring,
An English Hawthorn, decked out
As a pot-pourri of pink blossom.

Malcolm Taylor

THE PANIC

On hog-back of the hill
twisted hawthorns
bow before prevailing winds
lie almost level with the earth
suppleness turned to knots and gnarls.

Squat ash trees outface gales
suffer windburn till leaves fall,
even on calm days there is
susurration in the branches
when a freshet passes.

Sense here earth’s heartbeat,
know Panic of the great god,
who does not live in unknown places
but everywhere and casts dark joy.

Robin Ford

DOWNPATRICK HEAD, COUNTY MAYO

Storm weathered faceless statue
Stone wall in pieces on the heather
Target practice for heathen birds
Wheeling over the cliff

Only sea out to horizon
Seas down the blowhole
Long way down the bird muck
Covered strata to the sea washed rock

Lichen, limpets, moss all cling
To the sides of the hole
Rainbow colours the spray
Of the waves hello and farewell

Windswept hunchbacked trees
Persuaded to bow down
Over the years by the wind
That blew before and after me.

Mark Mordey

GUERILLAS

Towns devour countryside, swallow fields,
woods, trap streams in pipes and drains,
quell riot, upset balance in the wild of world;
but nature, though pushed back, will not surrender:
ash and sycamore hide keys in secret places, cracks
and drains, there lie dormant till opportunity occurs
to unlock force enough to rupture footings;
buddleia and ivy are implacable, all fungus needs
is warm, damp nights, rats and cockroaches will learn
routes and passages through ducts and cavities –
              for theirs is the kingdom.

Robin Ford