Sycamore fig tree (Ficus sycomorus), Kruger National Park. [o]
A SYCAMORE'S VIOLIN
a violinist holds
finely carved
sycamore wood
she presses her chin
to a soft
brown vibration
violin wood glows
as notes stretch so
a violinist climbs
a violin’s
sycamore
bits of a tree’s
flaky bark
sting her eyes
breeze hisses through
a sycamore’s
Adam-&
-Eve leaves
higher she
climbs higher
she & her
violin’s notes go
so
at a branch-crux now
tangled twigs cradling
crow chicks
and beyond live
twig-ends & sycamore leaves
sky
Beech Tree. Photo by Nick Turner. [o]
CLOVE HITCH & BEECH TREE
momentarily he takes
leave of loved
ones drops respons
ibilities like
leaves strolls fields un
til an old tree
friend & he re
acquaint he begins
to climb in
search of a
past mind
mark a touch
ing place a part
of a succession of
knots laid
in to a mind’s en
twined paths a
clove hitch cl
enched its
rope snug
round a
beech branch
red poly-
propylene neat
ly tied sap-filled
limbs swayed play
fully by wind rem
embers craft
ing a boy-scout art
efact grafting its
hawser-laid sat
isfaction to smooth
beech bark with a
firm tug a found
ation-knot of a tree
-house that turned
out too
difficult to
build now em
bedded in a
bulge on a
branch above
that hitch
’ll be dust
y green blen
ded with wild
hawser-laid
strands still
defined but
smudged like an
cient leather braid
on an oss
ified body this
beech is big and
curvaceous healthy
only somewhere a
bove there’s one
limb tourn
iqueted by
his forgot
ten knot to
be red
iscovered now
the beech has
layered in rings
the thick
ness of his hav
ing passed
through a
boy’s life to a
man’s he climbs
the tree’s
limbs lead
him up
wards with wood
en emb
races he finds
that knot and
with his pen
knife cuts out
a rope of
dust it’s easy a
sound of fibres
peeling away is
brittle then
air’s in
grained with a grit
ty scent of fine
green float
ing powder
and left in
the bark are
smooth dark
ruts polished
burns to fit
a finger’s
width cool
and snug ah
the beech
trees reach
ing branch
es sway sudden
ly he hears his
name called a
gain called by a
familiar voice
his seeker knows
his love of stroll
ing but for
gets to look
up into trees
Bur oak. [o]
DAD OAK
my father is a large gnarled oak
but he does not know
his blue steel eyes are all of sky
tight in his sockets
to stare back is to be burned
by sun pure as love
i have tried to tell my father
about his branches
and the air that his leaves breathe
and the nests that his heart house
but he will not have it
that he is oak & sky
he is a man
and oak trees cannot speak
his speaking creaks in the roots
i am as earth wraps round me
but he has no idea
of what he has not said
as the frost clips off
his leaves
it is the sky that brought me up
brought me towards the stars
and it is the sky that sharpens my bones
chisels from each of my calcium wands
tiny moon-white
oak trees each
named me
Oak sapling. [o]
THEIR TREE
She sights the tree between
two huge derelict distribution sheds.
It stops
her as if her husband
suddenly lived again.
A spring oak on the horizon –
mature with dark thick twisting limbs
holding fresh mists of greenery.
If she could remember the word,
she’d utter – miracle. Her children
only know trees as myths.
It’s as if the tree
is balanced
on a wire
stretched
between
two hollow memorials.
See how she wants so much –
wants to keep the tree.
She puts her nearly-see-through hand
up to the horizon, and cups the tiny oak.
It is impossible to speak of, but
the perfect miniature tree roots
itself into her palm – roots through
her veins, and feeds gently on her blood.
She & her stick-children are in awe
of the oak standing up from her hand.
The light is sprinkled on its leaves as if
green moth-dust clothed it.
And that fresh ancient scent of deep green.
Radiant green again. They weep.
Her son & daughter moan,
then yell no words. But
their breaths shake
the little oak’s limbs. It sways.
And the roots, as they take
the strain and move
in her flesh,
hurt.
MARK GOODWIN is a poet and sound artist, and also a tree-climber. He lives on a boat in Leicestershire with his photographer partner, Nikki Clayton. Mark has been making poetry for over three decades. He has published six full-length books & seven chapbooks with various poetry houses, including Longbarrow Press & Shearsman Books. Both his books with Longbarrow – Steps (2014) & Rock as Gloss (2018) – were category finalists in the Banff Mountain Book Competition. Portland: a Triptych, a collaborative work with Tim Allen & Norman Jope, was recently published by KFS. Mark’s next full-length collection – At – is due out with Shearsman in 2020.
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