26 Trees

COMMON/PRIVATE

Paired, my trees mark gates of the old workhouse
(now private residential streets, like many),
surround themselves with (I’ve just learned this word)
suckers – new growth that gardeners control.
Their bark is grey. Not photo grey but live,
gnarled and with recent branches offering
leaves greenfly have holed. The trees stand tall,
one bent. The tree book keeps them with X rating.

This was my contribution to the 26 Trees project, one of many from 26 Characters that have stimulated me since 2015.  My brief was to write 62 words of prose or verse about an individual lime tree (a pair of them was acceptable) in Cambridgeshire, plus 400 words on the background to the species.  Click on the project link above, then follow your nose.

The ex-workhouse is that of St Ives, Cambridgeshire -- across the River Ouse from the town, and now on the eastern edge of the village of Hemingford Grey, whose manor house drew an unrelated poem from me in 2018. 

The X rating is the mark given to the Common Lime in Alan Mitchell's The trees of Britain and Northern Europe, which rates the gardenworthiness of trees as follows:

I -- first-class

II -- good

III -- mediocre

X -- little or nothing to commend it.

And one question in the 400 background words remains unanswered.  Who was this elusive French chemist Missa, and in what century did they live?

26 Trees was a joint project with the Woodland Trust, who generously presented participants with saplings of their species.  What I did with mine is this:

It's in! For TreeCharterDay, my 26trees lime from @WoodlandTrust. Planted in the grounds of @WorksopPrioryCE by their kind permission, and with help from @hughcrispin & other green-fingered kin. Dedicated to parents Ivon & Barbara Baker (1928-2011 and 1932-2008). 

A letter to the Second World War

A LETTER TO THE SECOND WORLD WAR

Dear Mrs War,

the one middle-aged Britons hanker for,

you happened, so you're not there any more.

Why do we lack, 

seeing your legacies, the will to hack

them for our own day and not want you back?

What should I say?

Not being there, you cannot go away.

Please fade.  Napoleon's did. They had their day.

This poem was originally written in response to one of the prompts in Jo Bell's 52: write a poem a week.  It was for number 20, to write a poem in the form of a letter. 

It has attained no publication higher than self-publication as part of a social media conversation.  I tweeted it in response to colleague Clare Trowell's disquiet, working from home on a rainy day, at the sound of a Spitfire beyond the clouds.

This song of gladness

This Song Of Gladness

Beautiful Saviour by Stuart Townend

Verse, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, greater chorus –

yes, a structure to fit the song’s ideas:

verse worship, work, ordinary time,

and chorus echoing something more.

Less sung now than it used to be in our church,

unexpected that Sunday in the Spring.

New out of hospital, I sang it loud,

loud as recovery let me sing.

Biblical language, resonant names of God,

let’s say clear day, let’s say vista,

let’s say journey which has made.

We felt it raise us, we felt it let us see,

with our gathering, yes, our gathering

flying higher than before.

True, nothing inherent in this structure,

which I’ll call A A B A B B dash.

It will not beautify each pairing known

but may serve others, like this song.

Biblical language, resonant names of God,

let’s say clear day, let’s say vista,

let’s say journey which has made.

We felt it raise us, we felt it let us see,

with our gathering, yes, our gathering

flying higher than before.

Biblical language, resonant names of God,

let’s say clear day, let’s say vista,

let’s say journey which has made.

We felt it raise us, we felt it let us see,

with our gathering, yes, our gathering

flying high, high over all.


This poem was originally written in response to one of the prompts in Jo Bell's 52: write a poem a week.  It was for number 42, to write about a song.  I chose to write about Stuart Townend's worship song 'Beautiful Saviour'.  After the rediscovery described in the poem, Clare and I spent a Sunday lunchtime talking about the song's structure.

"It will not beautify each pairing known" -- we thought a bit about whether the structure in its most basic terms -- AABABB' -- would have much effect on every pair of things put into it. We tried a couple:

• Portugal, Portugal, Finland, Portugal, Finland, Finland in winter
• 60s nurse film, 60s nurse film, cement mixer, 60s nurse film, cement mixer, cement mixers

and concluded that the structure had no magical power to be inherently uplifting.

The poem has now found publication in Orbis 191, spring 2020.  It has benefited somewhat from suggestions by editor Carole Baldock.

Regarding church music more widely, I continue to add to my Google Maps list of places in the British Isles that have given their names to hymn tunes, with 273 at the last count.  During lockdown I have developed an addiction to Ralph Vaughan Williams' tune King's Lynn.