Old Growth
His wife heeds risk from a distance.
For country dwellers
the strains of a chainsaw
are seldom an annoyance,
unless too close at hand,
they affirm a place amongst birdsong.
To keep an engine thrumming,
to perform the perfect cleft
how much strength, how many attempts?
Even for a person at home
with removal, the fall of dead wood,
the tree surgeon’s divorce
was destined to be messy.
He imagines a string of trysts,
at the garden centre, where her hand
first brushed a stranger’s
over a trough of moist earth.
Where she’d looked into the eyes
of someone who could make
things grow, a nurturer –
not forever cutting back.
Sometimes, most times,
the roots survive.
Hope dwells deep beneath
the carnage, the necessity of it –
to keep things safe,
to make things clear.
The art of felling only that
which cannot be saved.
Technique prohibits
a blade to stray,
to raise against a trunk or limb
both living and desired.
Sue Johns originates from Cornwall where she started performing as a punk poet, in the 1980’s. Publications include Hush (Morgan’s Eye Press, 2011),Rented, Poems on Prostitution and Dependency (Palewell Press, 2018) and Track Record (Dempsey & Windle, 2021). She was highly commended in the Prole pamphlet competition and the Amnesty International competition. She has an MA in Writing Poetry. Website: https://suejohns.co.uk/