Ian Palmer

Hockley Woods

Trees raise their voices in the wind
and thrash their limbs.
Rooted for life, they take their only chance
to move and speak.

Timeworn through history
their memories are long with change and pain.
A million seeds are children, yet so few
survive to live serene as patriarchs.
Sharing their forest world as friends with men,
if only they would say
all they have seen and know.

The oak: My father lived a thousand years
and whispered to me long forgotten truth,
that thousands of his forebears had preserved,
before men counted time and lost their way.
Primeval memories,
of folly, strife and chaos reconciled
to love and trust, a way of peace
remembered in the calmness of the trees,
but lost to men.

Trees watch the weather and the world,
waiting their time to speak.