HEART OF OAK

It’s 1660 and after the death of the puritan tyrant Cromwell the monarchy has been restored under Charles the II.

In the south of England the summer is fading as the land is hastened into autumn.

Jay and squirrels compete in the oak forests for the acorns both burying them in the rich earth in store for the winter ahead.

 

“It’s cold, very cold and wet” It said to itself “and I can’t see anything.”

This went on for some time although how much time it was unable to say as it had no means by which to measure.

On some days it was impossible to move as the penetrating cold held it vice like.

On others it is awash and almost floating.

Then things felt different it was warmer and it was changing a most peculiar feeling came over it.

There was a tearing sensation and it was moving upwards and it was getting warmer and warmer.

All of a sudden it wasn’t dark anymore.

The acorn had burst forth from the rich earth as a seedling oak.

The seedling felt fantastic and the feelings it was experiencing were like no others it had ever felt before.

Then came the time to survey its new surroundings it was in an open space surrounded by huge oak trees one of which had produced the acorn from which it emerged.

The ground was dappled with golden patches which moved from place to place.

Beyond the huge oaks were more open spaces and more mighty oaks as far as it could see.

In the other open spaces there were more seedlings also taking in their new situations.

But apart from the trees there were creatures of various shapes and sizes some small things with lots of legs too large four legged creatures and other that flew in the air.

Some creatures actually eat the smaller ones.

The very big creatures occasionally trampled the tiny seedlings it was not looking forward to that.    

On the whole the seedling thought its new situation was very nice indeed.

However it had not yet experienced rain, hail, wind, fog, and frost snow.

 

Its now 1760 and mad King George III takes to the throne where he remains for sixty years.

 

The seedling is now a strong young oak, young and in it prime and does not fear the trampling beasts of the forest.

Its view is still restricted to the surrounding Oaks and clearings although he now towers over the latest crop of seedlings.

Some of the once mighty oaks lay broken on the ground brought down by a combination of age and wind or the weight of snow.

These are now the habitat of the many legged creatures.

 

1860 and Queen Victoria rules the land and times they are a changing a revolution is taking place, the industrial revolution.

This revolution is driven by great wood burning machines.

 

The oak is now middle aged and stout it is now among the tallest trees in its part of the forest though its view is relatively unchanged, for now.

Our oak has noticed the air tastes different and there is a sound in the distance that was no there before.

Everything else remains the same the creatures come and go until one day a new creature arrives it is four legged but only uses two the oak does not like this creature.

It smells different, it smells of death.

The two legged one was the first of many but they all had the same smell.

 

1960 Queen Elizabeth II is on the throne and again the land stands on the brink of another revolution this time its the sexual revolution where the world dives headlong into a spiral of depravity.

 

The oak stands in a small wood he is the largest and grandest of the trees remaining.

The two legged ones devoured the old forest for their machines which drove their revolution and their wars.

All those many years the oak craved to see beyond the others oaks and clearings now craved only the old views.

 

2005 Queen Elizabeth II still reigns the land but it is now a land where the people have learned the value of what nature is are resolved to protect what they have left and if possible add to it and are full of optimism for the future.

    

Our oak now stands a full 70 feet tall and proudly looks down upon a new forest, a young forest of seedlings and saplings.

Our oak is old and tired but it is content that the forest which it knows it will never see mature knows all the same that mature it will.

One day when it has been felled by the wind or the weight of snow and it becomes the habitat for the many legged ones it will return to the rich earth from whence it came those many years ago.

It may well be that once the Jays and squirrels have competed for the crop of acorns it will again burst forth from the rich earth as a seedling oak.

 

SUMMER GARDEN

Suspended Baskets Spill Scented Color

Gently Swinging In The Summer Breeze

Pollen Drifts Unseen in the Fragrant Air

Causing Sufferers to Cough and Sneeze

 

Maids Scantily Clad In Pastel Colors

Girls Wearing Little to Keep Them Cool

Scanty Outfits Set Men’s Pulses Racing

The Men Who Watch Sit Back and Drool

 

Men in Shorts Wear Socks with Sandals

Middle-aged Women Dressed Up As Lamb

Deciding To Satisfying Their Appetite

Eating Sandwiches of Cheese and Ham

 

Lunch Consumed and Glasses Emptied

The Drink Is Drunk So No More Boozing

Homeward Now They Make Their Way

To End the Day by Dozing or Snoozing

 

Babies Asleep in Buggies or Prams

Children Laugh From Slide and Swings

The Garden Full Of Carefree Chatter

Roaring Trade Till the Last Bell Rings 

SUNLIGHT DANCING

 

Bright sunlight dances across the open water

Glinting like diamonds in the soft march winds

The surface occasionally broken by rising fish

Far-reaching ripples expand as a splash rescinds

 

Without warning the morning peace is shattered

The silence broken by breeding ducks in a brace

Flying and gliding effortlessly in perfect harmony

Until clumsily hitting the water with a lack of grace

 

An intruder and his dog appear on the lakeside path

The alarm is raised by geese honking frantically

Adult swans noisily adopt their defensive stance

Huge wings outspanned and charge dramatically

 

The once tranquil scene is lost in a cacophony 

All the nesting wildfowl have now been alerted

The intruder and his dog disappear along the path

The peace returns now the danger has been averted

 

Bright sunlight again dances across the water

Glinting like diamonds in the soft march winds

The surface occasionally broken by rising fish

Far-reaching ripples expand as a splash rescinds

REAWAKENED

 

Nature Reawakened

As The Long Winter Dies

Naked Boughs Are Dressed

Spring Causing Sap To Rise

The Resounding Birdsong

Fills Again The April Sky’s

And The Warming Earth

Releases Daff’s And Narcissi’s

THE SNOW QUEEN

 

The Snow Queen Banished

To Slumber Again Unseen

As Mother Nature Paints

Again, The Landscape Green

WHEN FROSTY DISAPPEARED

 

When Frosty disappeared

It really left people in a muddle

But Frosty the Snowman

Vanished in May so he’s a puddle!

The Interesting Tree of Tree Sprite Wood

 

The Interesting Tree stood in the centre of Tree Sprite Wood, and it had stood there for a very long time, in fact it had stood there long before there was a Tree Sprite Wood.

It was called the “Interesting tree” for a very good reason, because whenever people walked by it, they would say “look at that interesting tree”. 

And very many people did pass by and whatever their reason for being there in the wood, whether they were daily dog walkers, occasional ramblers, courting couples, families groups with exasperated parents trying to tire their children on a Sunday afternoon or middle-aged couples out for their daily constitutional’s, they would all say “oh look at that interesting tree”. 

It was a strange stunted tree, lopsided and misshaped with a trunk that varied in girth and was all gnarled and knotty and its branches were irregular in size and shape and protruded at odd angles from the trunk with no symmetry whatsoever, and its overall appearance earned it its reputation as “interesting”, although it could equally have earned the name “odd”.

People also imagined they could see a face among the knots and gnarls, which of course they could, because the tree was alive. But not in the conventional sense, where people talk about a living tree, all trees are alive, but the “Interesting Tree” was alive in a very real sense, it had a consciousness, and not only could it think, but it could philosophize, and talk at length on many subjects, it could also feel, laugh, cry, and it had friends.

 

Among exalted circles in the natural world, he was known as “The most noble and erudite, ancient sage tree of wisdom and enchanted dwelling place of the Rainbow Fairies”, but he prefered to be called Wilf.

Wilf was the oldest tree in Tree Sprite Wood by some considerable distance and only Witch Hazel came close to his longevity, but she wasn’t a tree.

Hazel moved to the wood when it was still young and it was only after the wood had been thriving for several centuries that the Rainbow Fairies took up residence.

Had the 21^st Century passers by known that the interesting tree was inhabited by Fairies they would have found that very interesting indeed.

But people don’t really see, they look, they look all the time but they never see, but that’s not the reason that they couldn’t see the Fairies.

 

They didn’t of course notice the Fairies because Rainbow Fairies can mimic every colour of the rainbow, which was why they were called Rainbow Fairies and they where in fact like chameleons and they could blend in with their surroundings perfectly, so they were always there, sometimes only a few feet away, but they could never be seen, unless of course they chose to be.

 

Apart from being an “Interesting Tree”, Wilf was also a very happy tree, because he loved Tree Sprite Wood and in particular he loved being home to the fairies.

The wood thrived over the centuries and everything in the wood was perfect but one day someone walked through Tree Sprite Wood who didn’t think Wilf looked like an interesting tree, because as he approached he thought it looked old and ugly and completely out of place in amongst the young and healthy trees that surrounded it.

The man was a tree surgeon who wore stout scuffed boots, a yellow vest that didn’t cover his belly and a silly white hard hat perched on his head and he walked right up to Wilf and sprayed a big blue cross on the trunk of the “Interesting Tree” and that sinister blue cross meant Wilf was to be cut down.

After marking Wilf’s trunk he continued on through the wood looking for other likely candidates for the axe.

 

After completing his inspection of the wood he returned to his truck and had his lunch and then he filled in his worksheet before he headed back to the “Interesting Tree” with his chainsaw.

However what the Tree Surgeon had not bargained on was the protector of Tree Sprite Wood, Hazel the White Witch.

Hazel was a very beautiful witch, but she was also very old and even White Witches are suceptable to the ravages of time so her beauty was now confined to the inside.

So it was necessary for her to transform herself into a beautiful Enchantress when the Tree Surgeon returned to kill the “Interesting Tree”.

The moment he saw her he was completely mesmerized and forgot why he was there and then Hazel lured him away from Wilf and took him deeper into the wood while the Fairies removed the blue paint from Wilfs belly and as they scrubbed and scrubbed at the paint they tickled his bark so much that he laughed and laughed until tears rolled down from his knotty eyes and he was the happiest tree in Tree Sprite Wood.

 

The Tree Surgeon in the scuffed boots, yellow vest and the silly hard hat perched on his head was sitting next to a babbling brooke when Hazels enchantment had worn off and when he awoke from his dream state he had no recollection of how he got there.

After a few confused moments he got up and then spent an hour searching for the ugly twisted tree with the blue cross on its trunk, but he couldn’t find it again as the Rainbow Fairies had disguised it as a young perfect specimen of treehood so the man gave up his search.

When he got back to his truck he picked up the worksheet and his pen from the passenger seat and put a tick in the box marked “complete” and then he drove away.

 

Hazel, Wilf and the Rainbow Fairies had faced much more dangerous adversaries over the ages and bested them so an overweight tree surgeon was no more than a diversion so when he had driven away everything was as it should be and always would be in Tree Sprite Wood.