Significances

i

Imagine a celebration party,

a ceremony of blessing

for my walnut tree, planted

a tree-ling of four, now turned sixty.

I would have a circle of women

in dark hoods, dancing in the moonlight

to a ripple and swoosh of my wind harp

invoking the strength of the tree,

invoking its magic.

Once, just before midnight,

snow began to fall;

as the flakes drifted down

they woke the harp

which sang into the silence.

ii

A bone carver chooses to live

on an estuary, awash

with moon-tugged tides,

a meeting place for earth, air and water.

I have no estuary.

But the morning after the snow,

my tree was shrouded in white;

garden and sky mirrored one another

so exactly, there was no horizon line.

I could have walked across my lawn,

climbed the rungs of my tree

up into the heavens,

leaving my harp to sing

a solitary requiem.

I have no estuary;

only a thrush's song

filled with moonlight.