Overnight it happened
in the long, rip-flap­ping, tent-snap­ping darkness
and it made us sad that any tree should come to grief
this way.

When the wind-thrashed, blus­tery rain-squall
bowled in the day
we con­soled our­selves, you and I, willed
it would rest on its roots, that
all that was called for was a shift­ing of gears
like a man who briefly los­es his balance
to gain his own equilibrium.

In all the years of our long lives
it had giv­en noth­ing away.

Now as we peer into its hol­low rim
how close­ly we have come to see the vapour moths and
beetles
whose qui­et indus­try has worked its way
into the dead centre
of everything.

 

Libre­tos for the Black Madon­na (White Adder Press, 2011)

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