THE FALLEN ELM

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)