Lumber (an elegy for the Welfare State)
Because you've grown and grown - too tall, too broad, too thick - so we shall cut you down. Because your spreading mantle does darken all our plot - so we shall cut you down. For your ambition upward, though long since trimmed each year, means we must take you down. No more that thrash of branches, in spring storms spilling graceful rain from your lopped crown. No more our summer refuge under your shady dappling, leaves by breeze all fribbled. No more the autumn tableau of patchwork turning, green to amber then to red. No more, when lastly naked, will full moon rising silver tissue paper skin. Yes, old friend, we are intent with rope and screaming blade, limb by limb to bring you down. And then your trunk, disabled, is creaking hinge of life before the door is slammed. Out from piles of fallen bark, ladybirds diverse escape the diamond fissures dark. Where once they paused, pigeons fly through empty space - the enclosed light let loose. So, stump apart, now lawn is level playing field, while in the ground roots pulse. MARK CASSIDY From Birmingham via the Isle of Wight, Mark Cassidy now teaches Radiography in Portsmouth, where he lives with two rabbits, seven trees and the rest of his family. His poetry has appeared in various European magazines, including Skylight 47 "probably Ireland's most interesting poetry publication", and may also be found on his blog, Fractures. During the late 1970s/early 1980s Mark was a supporter of the Clause 4 group within the National Organisation of Labour Students. |