The Old Ash Tree
           Rhydymwyn Valley, North East Wales


I walk this bend of tarmac road.
Here the River Alyn
flowed past you, old sleeping Ash Tree,
feet firmly on the bank.

What do you dream
in this thin November sun?
Do you hear a thousand voices,
heavy shovels heaving earth,
the whisper of a miner’s prayer?

Do you dream of searchlights
weaving patterns on the night,
droning aircraft, screeching sirens?
The Valley’s secret work of World War Two,
which they, like you, could not divulge.

But you go back so much further,
to a time of children’s laughter.
Did lovers sit under your cool wide boughs
planning their lust for life?

Today you do not have a single leaf,
the grain of your boughs’ dull green.
Yet, the air is blue, and thin white clouds  
float like daytime ghosts.      

As shadows creep like silent ships,
through the tips of your branches,
a just discernible sickle moon.



* Maureen Weldon lives in North Wales and has been widely published UK small press magazines and elsewhere. She was commended for The Flintshire Poetry Competition 2010 and recently gave a poetry & music performance with Onya Wick at the Chester Literature Festival.