Lines In A Greenwood

Within the city of the wood The busy insects hum Two squirrels pour along a bough Like quicksilver. The bumbles thrum Fat shoppers, a continuum Swinging each flower's frail pendulum Chiming of here and now Surveillance from the towering clouds The wide winged buzzards wheel The leafy canopy below Bathed in an eldritch sylvan glow Where sycamores, safety bestow And timid birds conceal Three ash trees thole the stranglehold Of ivy's grim embrace The palmate patterns, liquid drops Descend from forest's chimney tops Twigs that cruel winter's axe will chop And leafy lives erase A breeze arises. All the leaves Are chattering each to each Green saplings swish, great elms creak And all are moving, mighty, meek The rowans brush the robin's cheek As she flies out of reach A lightning bolt has blocked the path Spilt beech and mistletoe But unconcerned the recent tread Of deer hooves on the muddy bed Of track with mulch and fern spread Have gone where whispers go