Charcoal tree

Another fiery story for this poem. It’s a theme…

When I was creating poems for the Calder Wood project (you can read about it here, by the way), I developed particular affection for particular trees. It happens that way. I’ve got quite a few friends who consider one tree especially their own – maybe you feel that way too. One of the trees I spent time with over that year ended up being burned out by vandals. I didn’t know, until then, that that was even a thing, that people set light to trees just for kicks, to see what would happen.

What happened to that tree was that it burned for days and then fell. It had already been halfway to the end before; there was a little cave in its trunk, a place we had crouched in, taking silly photos of ourselves, pretending to be forest spirits, re-enacting old stories and gathering ideas for our pictures and poetry.

It’s not that I didn’t know that trees die, it’s just that I wasn’t expecting it to happen to that one so soon.

Darkness is a direction

All my body is made charcoal
The end of me smouldering for
Three days and three nights	
Darkness is a direction, the
Fire’s end and the fall,
Waiting to find my way

When they set fire to my belly
And all those summers came back to me, 
Remembering my wide leaves in the sun
How warm, how full, how new
Now I wait for winter and wonder
How the snow will lay blackening on me,
Melting these strange horizontals
That let me fade to earth