The Remembering Tree is a measured and subtly powerful debut Leopard Arts publication for Carol Shea. Channelling Kathleen Jamie, The Remembering Tree tells a story of a simple wish evocatively rendered as a moment of exquisite sacrifice.
I hear you again, feet lagging now
each careful step along frosted path
planted
then uprooted in metred succession.
No longer swarming through bracken
or humming clover, not lifted on
laughter, no genial chattering nor
puffing breaths announce your approach.
I heard you then, heard your wishes
in breezy whispers, babbled appeals.
I felt your coppered gifts butted
into fissures, dispossessing
summer’s biota. I tasted pollutants,
the honeyed venom of countless
exchanges, tainting sap, obstructing arteries.
I hope your wishes were granted.
I hear you, not in summer now, though
the same Atlantic gusts pound our limbs.
Did you hear me when I fell?
Surrendering birdsong and tickling moth
larvae; greeting the rustle
of woodlouse and beetle
feasting on decaying
moss and lichen in the hummocks.
I hope your wishes were granted.
I hear you again. Vibrations strong.
Once thorny, winter crowns
no longer bear seed, but dispersed
on wind or wing, rooted magically.
Re-generations not only endure,
but flourish.
Now I lie prone, a snag
in peaty puddles.
At last protected,
stockaded.
Studied. A subheading on
a folklore page.
Find more poetry on Leopard Arts...
