© 2014 by tore56789 (GOS) All rights reserved.
Yes, 80, is old. But it’s not even a stone’s throw for you my old friend. Is it? You who have stood here so magnificently, and so proudly?
Should I not at right call you: A watcher of time? A sentinel –as you have stood here gracefully as eyes over this house, for more years than I care to remember.
How many leaps of your leaves into the sky, in a blissful cold breeze, brought about by a seasonal fall, does that amount to, my old friend? Lots I think?
All I know is as a boy, I climbed up without care through the canopy of your foliage, to capture what you were aware of in each of your awakening days–and there stood awe inspired at the scenery –which seemed to stretch out endlessly, for miles and miles.
And when I wasn’t no more than maybe 5, 6, of your bared limbs, when a carpet of your leaves rested on the ground, I, my much older brother, Rewan, my little sister Glanna, swung on a swing made from an old tire; which had been placed there by my dad’s people, when he too was but a boy.
You glimpsed my departure from amongst your leaves, when I went off to work on my uncle’s farm at 13. And no doubt again spied down on me when I kissed my first girl at 16, on a seat fashioned then from wood –from the old tire it had previously been, as she giggled awkwardly, and coyly, to my advances.
You even observed the German bombers flying over the Cornish countryside, as they flew onwards to rain death down on London –horrors that must have been appalling for those concerned!
And miraculously when a farm down the road went up in flames in 1942, taking that family’s life, after a spitfire crashed into it, after the most horrific of a squirmish with a German ME109, you were spared. If even the devastation had spread fairly close to where you stood?
And even when men later came to knock on our door, in their khaki uniforms, with deep regret on their faces, to pass on news of my brother’s fall in Normandy? I sensed too then in your stillness, that you also were mourning our loss, in amongst our tears, our whinges, my mother’s loud wails –for the one she had tried to protect, and couldn’t. Aware he was now in God’s keep.
At 28 you saw me wed. In the spring of 1955, you watched my wife carry my first in her arms, a little girl so celebrating of life, we named, Enderlin, with the most beautiful of laughs, along with the most God-giving of smiles. In 1956, you saw us mourn her loss, as she got carried away from pneumonia, which she caught that winter –she been no more than two.
Three seasons later, my dad was destined to passed the same way –which I’m sure you knew well of, old friend, as you must have seen the wake of black which entered the house, along with the downed expressions on the faces of those beneath you? Sadly, just three years after that –after you spotted my mother no doubt with tears running down her cheeks –to the ongoing words of a priest’s praise for the departed –she too was destined to pass the same way. No doubt, to you, she must have appeared like an old root starved of sustenance –since all that had motivated her had dwindled away with time.
After that, you must have watched my wife and I age. Aware my parents were no longer about. And spied on proudly, as our two little ones, played likewise and laughed and found great happiness under your graceful presence? As you continued to stand there, and record life’s changes.
The End
I tried to write this as glimpses of life. To show what the tree might see if it could record moments of life. Even though the elderly man is the narrator?
I kind of felt too, a tree might view life as changing events. Like a seasonal loss of its leaves.
Not sure where the idea for the poem came from? I originally scribbled it down in a hard covered notebook, after awakening one May morning in 2014. Think it’s different than my other attempts? But I feel too it has beauty. I actually found this quite sad to read through afterwards, during proof reading, after it had been transferred over to MS Word. I think it was because the lines reminded too much of my own life. The fact time had also passed me by.
Outside of my home also stands a tall tree. But not so proud and graceful as the one I write about here. Strangely, it did manage to outlive storm Darwin. I guess like the tree I imagined here. It too must have seen such a huge amount of change around my home -memories that even now bring moister to my eyes, in places.
One thing I am grateful for –is having the loving support of Family. And I guess this must be the true motivator for this work. I hope readers receive something back from it. I know I certainly have. I was crying when I read back about Enderlin’s death. I even wanted to rewrite it so she lived. But I knew that was silly.
The names might seem a bit odd? But I can reassure you they’re not. They’re all Cornish. Which as you know is in the very southerly part of England. And like Ireland –my turf, is also Celtic.
I kind of pictured the German bombers flying over that part, protected by ME109 fighters, while this tall beautiful proud tree stood beneath, watchful over ths house.
Let’s face it. Certainly not anything Stephen King might envisage. With branches tapping on windows in the dead of night, after those in the household had gone to sleep, and a ghastly grin emanating from some section of the trunk –powered by evil intentions.
