As I sit, sipping my post-natation cup of tea, my view is of trees. I have watched them now since the Autumn, with that attention that comes when you know that you are probably going to be writing about them. I thought that my observation was acute and I took great pleasure in detailing the changes in the trees through the two seasons that they have been my subject matter. That, at least was what I thought.
It turns out that my observation is just as sloppy as anyone else's, and Spring caught me unawares. It was the beginning of the transformation of the gnarled stumps of the old trees with the first shoots of the season that focussed my attention.
I have thought that the trees in the cafe of my leisure centre are more than usually, melodramatically gaunt in their winter emptiness. They could, quite easily be transferred to the stage for some Gothic horror production. It was a combination of my own lack of perception and the theatricality of the trees that prompted this poem. The first of the Spring Trees series.
Debut
Each day I looked,
a keen spectator of the scene.
But what is obvious now,
shows me I did not sense
the movement held
within the bulk of trees.
Slow ripples of the yearly rings
that plump the bark and
break the twigs to bud.
Each stunted spike of growth
shows up the tattiness
of last year’s props.
The tired scenery of
dead productions past.
The carcases for odd
forgotten plays.
And
now,
with just a touch of green,
re-used and tarted-up
they’re good to go
for yet another show!
Although you might think that I should get a life, I do find watching the trees fascinating! I am fully determined to keep writing about them and in a year, end up with a sequence which may, or may not work as a separate entity.
I am trying to get the Autumn Trees poems I wrote, illustrated, or to have art work to accompany them when Flesh Can Be Bright is published in October. I hope this series or another can inspire further art work.
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