Abandoned Christmas Tree Plantation
We are waiting for a Christmas that never came,
each species a friend of a friend of some needle-hue.
All the years, heights and postures are present
like children in a school that no child ever leaves.
Each species a friend of a friend of some needle-hue:
those adolescent spruces prickle with boredom
like children in a school that no child ever leaves.
The infant firs sing to themselves in the snow.
The prefect pines, sky-high, peer down unmoved.
Those adolescent spruces prickle with boredom;
the infant firs sing to themselves in the snow.
We speak through the wind and only then in murmurs;
stretch our limbs into the wind to catch at birds.
The prefect pines, sky-high, peer down unmoved
bartering a bullfinch song for a goldfinch chime.
We speak through the wind and only then in murmurs.
By dusk we are whispers and secret playtime rhymes.
We stretch our limbs into the wind and catch at birds.
Our tree rings are school bells that peal in December
bartering a bullfinch song for a goldfinch chime.
By dusk we are whispers and secret playtime rhymes.
All the years, heights and postures are present.
Our tree rings are school bells that peal for December.
We are waiting for a Christmas that will never come.
David Morley’s recently published Enchantment (Carcanet), a Sunday Telegraph Book of the Year chosen by Jonathan Bate. The Invisible Kings was a PBS Recommendation and TLS Book of the Year chosen by Les Murray. The Gypsy and the Poet is due from Carcanet in 2013 followed by New and Selected Poems in 2014. He writes regularly for The Guardian and Poetry Review. He wrote The Cambridge Introduction to Creative Writing and co-edited The Cambridge Companion to Creative Writing. He teaches at Warwick University where is Professor of Writing. www.davidmorley.org.uk
‘Abandoned Christmas Tree Plantation’ appeared in Enchantment, Carcanet Press, 2010.