The talking tree is silent now

It was me to blame.

The forester was unaware that your immensity of height
was held together by the thinnest barrel ring of wood where rot
had hollowed out your beechen heart.

"Listen" I said
and they heard the creak and strain of bark.
"The talking tree we call it, when the wind runs by."

It always hurts to see a tree come down.
To see the trunk stagger and the airy boughs bow low,
scattering their leaves and flowers on the forest floor,
is like watching a bird with broken wings
or a fish in the long slow suffocation of air.

The sky is thinner now, the intricately folded spaces of the canopy are gone, the rich rune of branch and twig has lost a volume of its poetry.

I wish I had been silent too.

(c) A McNaught