Photo: WHB … 2019
The tree had fallen
Rotting remains now
As the rain
The wind
devour its bark
Dam its life stream
Yet still it nurtures life
Home for beetle colonies to breed
For fungi to succeed
Rotted matted carcass
This sorbate matter
Feeds a frenzy
Of insect life
Foreign matter
Now acceptable
Powdered matter
Now both home
And sustenance
Renewable energy
Nature’s liturgy
Life in Death
To turn a phrase
That has to be
Nature’s best call
Perpetuating the present
In the past
Creating a new future
In an old landscape
N.B. The title of this poem is taken from T.S.Eliot’s ‘The Waste Land’.
‘1. The Burial of the Dead’, beginning … ‘April is the cruellest month …’
Roland's Ragbag 