Ancient YEW & Ivy Grove

Ivy covers dark, covers deep
roots of yew, running through
the mound, tump, tumulus, sidh,
gorsedd of three-boled tree
writhen beneath the written
epitaphs on grave stones, knitted
like mycelium, like leaf mould
in dark layers underground,
laid down like the dead
who have left the world
absent from the presence
we grasp here daily, present
in the forgotten not-world
they inhabit, presences
we conjure, cannot touch
not because under but beyond
the presence of I, somewhere
in the absence of not-I.

Above ground the tree
reaches for the sky,
brings not-world into world
in a spray of green needles
which do not fall
and sticky red arils
which do, year on year
here and not-here
not-yew then yew
eternally rooted
in ancestral presence.

A Glimpse of Summer

Last night, in the late twilight, but before it was dark enough for any stars to show, Venus blazed towards the western horizon with the crescent Moon and Jupiter nearby. This brought the approaching magic of the Midsummer season in spite of the coolness of the day. Yesterday began with rain but by evening the skies were a clear blue with hardly a cloud. Later, in the half-dark, I heard a night bird calling : a single note followed by a double note. What was it? Not an owl, though their calls are frequent through the woods across the valley at night. It haunted me to sleep.

Today it is cloudy again. No rain, but the woodland soil is wet underfoot. The stream rushes down the valley edged along its wet banks and up the rocky sides with beds of golden saxifrage. I sit, as often, on the seat by the well and drift into summer on the sound of the rushing waters. The small garden by the well-side is in full bloom. The meadows are lush with green speckled with yellow buttercups. The wood greening to shade as the leaf cover fills the branches. The path from the well to the ancient yew winds through a deeper shade past the younger yew trees that surround it.

As I emerge from the yew bower back into the light, Summer steals surreptitiously out of Spring.