Winter trees ii. Gone

With no advance warning, the car park in the leisure centre was closed so that twenty trees growing there could be cut down and removed.
          Parking was always 'interesting' as there was supposed to be two car parking spaces between each pair of trees - though it has to be said that not everyone parked as if they believed that two cars could fit.
          Now, suddenly, all the trees are gone in that part of the centre and my feelings are complicated by the fact that those trees have been the inspiration for one and a half sequences of poems!

The following is my response to the removal and it will be part of the eventual sequence Winter Trees.



Winter Trees

ii.   Gone

The blossom headed grab

picks up what’s left of

twenty trees.

When this year’s growth

was not cut back,

I should have known

that something was afoot.

And now these winter-winnowed

twigs protrude from that

closed metal sphere

like so much wayward hair.

Spaced equally, the twenty

shallow pits share emptiness

concave, not deep.

How easy to remove. 

And cut. 

Fresh, pungent stumps

that flaunt their age

in death.

Those trees were never huggable.

The rough, stained, ulcered bark

defied caress.  And yet.

Will asphalt fill the cavities

where roots once were?

And cars park easily

on obstacle free ground?

And memory forget

that there were ever trees?

Although I have given this poem the designation of 'ii.' in the sequence I do not think that it will necessarily end up being second in the finished work.  At least the trees which form a sort of canopy for the 'outside' tables have been left!