Trees

I have never tried to write a poem about a tree, which is a bit sad really. So being at a bit of a loss as to how to start this post I thought I’d have a look at what a few other poets had done. This is what happened:

Planting the Alder by Seamus Heaney

Birches by Robert Frost
A Shropshire Lad  2: Loveliest of trees, the cherry now by A.E. Houseman
Planting a Dogwood by Roy Scheele
Elm by Sylvia Plath
Firwood by John Clare
POEM IN WHICH I DO NOT TELL MY ENEMIES HOW LONG I’VE BEEN STARING AT THIS GRAPEFRUIT TREE by Casimir Wojciech 
Hawthorn Queen by Jane McKie
The Ivy-Wife by Thomas Hardy
Sleeping under the Juniper Tree by Pauline Stainer
Kowhai tree by Celso Roger Bird
This Lime Tree Bower My Prison by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The Maple Tree by John Clare
I Had a Little Nut Tree  anon
I Saw in Louisiana A Live-Oak Growing by Walt Whitman
Binsey Poplars by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Quiver tree by Eric Plattner
The Rowan by Violet Jacob
Sycamore Gap by Zoe Mitchell
Trees by Joyce Kilmer
THE UMBRELLA TREE by Adell Foster 
Viburnum (laurustinus) by James Montgomery
In The Willow Shade by Christina Rossetti 
Xylosma ( Xylosma congestum ) by Neva Schauer Glenn
Yew Trees by William Wordsworth
Zelkova by Bryan Thao Worra
 

But this one of mine does actually mention a tree: 

At Conishead Priory

I’ve never been one
for hugging trees

but this was a belter

so old so here

so stopping us in our tracks

that I allowed myself a touch

so it wasn’t so much hugging

as feeling history

I don’t think of this later

as a woman in purple

leads us in a taster

of fifteen minutes of silent meditation

and all I can think of

is how clean the carpet is

and quite how hideous

the idols and offerings are

which is all a bit confusing

as the temple is lovely

which reminds me of that track

through woods to the Bay

and wondering if these people

are always lost in thought

are they allowed the physicality

of enjoying their bodies

is there a Zen of running on beaches.

 

First published in Acumen Literary Journal 90, January 2018

 

Thanks for reading, Terry Quinn