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The First Part
In a forest there's a place
That rarely sees a human face,
Within surrounding trees' embrace
Just sun and moon define the pace.
Though sometimes on a favoured breeze
Faint sounds of church bells thread the trees.
With daylight draining from the sky
The sunset clouds in layers lie.
It's just by chance that I came by,
And make a brooding pheasant fly.
A far off buzzard from his height
Sees the fuss and notes the site.
At one time here a field was made
By clearing trees with axe and spade.
For this the miser, Time, was paid
With toiling lifetimes, mean the trade.
Often after, even so,
The plough would catch on roots below.
Now there grows instead of corn
Gorse and hazel, savage thorn;
And here and there about this lawn,
Sapling ash trees stand forlorn.
Near the edge and lying prone,
A long dead tree trunk, white as bone.
Where arching brambles make a pall
A ruin stands, just shoulder tall,
A cottage with a garden wall
Dark doorway open wide to all.
Fine the bramble's flower and fruit
But fierce the stem and foul the root.
Where once turnips grew in rows
In the plot the walls enclose
Now the deadly nightshade grows,
No-one digs and no-one hoes.
Still, the border shows a flower,
Where bindweed trumpets make a bower.
Where once murmured pigs and cow
Dead leaves rustle on the bough,
And where was spoken "thee" and "thou"
Only creatures live there now.
Those people won't have much to say
When all is told on Judgement Day.
The Second Part
With a sense of woe betide
I approach the doorway wide
And as I stoop to step inside
It seems as if the forest cried.
In a flash within the room
I see women at a loom
And vases of picked flowers in bloom;
But then the scene fades into gloom.
And what they wove was cobweb fine
That drapes the walls in dark design,
The flowers were bats that hang in line,
The only stir of movement, mine.
Now outside some deer take flight
Rising up from out of sight
And as they run their rumps show white
Then vanish in the fading light.
Where at the fringes of the wood
A sullen figure has since stood
Where over-shadows make a hood,
A sight I'd banish if I could.
Time and distance disengage
I cannot tell its ilk or age
- Unless, strange thought, somehow a mirror there.
A mirror reaching far and wide
Its slowly turning facets glide
The trees are from their roots untied
Like figures on a fairground ride
Or drifting souls the World denied
Moments hold the years they bide
Until near sick I turn aside
- The rest, so fraught, is more than I can bear.
The Third Part
I don't know why, I don't know how,
But I've become the tenant now.
As if my self once drove the cow
Fed the pigs and pushed the plough.
I toiled from dawn till set of sun
But died before the work was done.
But I don't need a roof or door
Winter fire or wooden floor,
Till crack of Doom and not before
I could stay for ever more.
The World will end one day, they say,
When angry gods demand their pay.
I watch the moss and ivy grow,
The snails that climb the stonework slow,
And in the the worm-holed ground below
A million microbes teem, I know.
Yet in that ink-black earthy hell
Next spring's pure white snowdrops dwell.
In summer when the grass grows tall,
And butterflies play motley fool,
Coiled adders bask beside the wall
And things with probing feelers crawl.
The grasses turn themselves to hay
When autumn mists outlast the day.
In winter, as the creatures fast,
When brittle frosts exert their grasp,
I think that if a stone were cast
The World would smash like breaking glass.
Freezing, as the sky light pales
The trees wear rime like wedding veils.
And when the darkness falls, profound,
The lonely owl cries echo round,
A plaintive hollow woodwind sound,
Then screeching as a mouse is found.
Solid silence follows on
The last of all sensation gone.
While demons brawl and angels wait
The days and months flow past in spate
And into years accumulate.
But soon will come the time and date
To take my leave of this estate;
Because beside the garden gate
Two cypress trees appeared of late
And whether called in love or hate
The portal that those trees create
Will lead me to my final fate.
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