#19 Write a Poem or Story

 As a child I loved to write but I haven't done very much of it since leaving school. This particular challenge then, will hopefully reignite my passion for creative writing!

I decided on a poem as my weekend project, I wanted to write something that could be completed in a relatively short time so that I wouldn't lose interest and put it aside. Then I decided to try a sestina because my biggest problem is settling on a topic and getting started and the tight constraints of this style narrow your choices.

A sestina is a poem with 39 lines. The final words of the first six lines are repeated in the other lines, in a specific pattern so the same words keep coming back like echoes. They are a bit like a puzzle so they are lots of fun to write!

The inspiration for my sestina was a photograph of a tree that was felled to make way for the HS2. It has been widely shared on Facebook and it royally pissed me off, I don't mind telling you!

I hope you like my poem, please let me know what you think. I am still tinkering with it so I appreciate any constructive criticism!

The Felled Tree

I saw an ancient tree, felled to the ground,          

which for three hundred summers had been shade         

to weary farmhands, leaning on its bark           

and children playing games beneath its boughs.

Below, the rain had quenched its twisted roots  

and dusty breeze had bustled through its leaves.              

 

Three hundred times in autumn it shed leaves,  

which fell like golden carpet on the ground.        

Acorns fell, which in turn sent down roots            

or fed the squirrels munching in its shade.           

Red, orange, gold, and russet painted boughs     

contrasted with the dull brown of its bark.           

                               

When winters came the frost adorned that bark

and empty branches glistened, nude of leaves.  

From time to time the snow fell on the boughs,

which stood as soft and silent as the ground.      

Freezing now beneath the cold tree's shade,      

the hard earth slept around its old friend's roots.              

                               

Scores of springs had come and thawed those roots,       

and scores of birds had feasted from its bark.     

Each year green shoots grew newly in its shade 

and sticky buds unfurled their new green leaves.              

While many feet above the teeming ground,      

the sunshine warmed and gladdened swaying boughs.   

                               

Three centuries of seasons shaped those boughs,

and nourished tangled yards of unseen roots,    

but now your glorious branches hit the ground  

and future children will not stroke your bark.     

Did you know that last time you shed leaves,      

the day was near when we would lose your shade?         

                               

Kings, servants, babes and cattle knew that shade            

and generations of them saw those boughs.       

Then thoughtless progress swept away your leaves         

and leaving just a stump above your roots,          

cut through the ancient beauty of your bark        

and watched as your great trunk fell to the ground.         

                               

One day our children may speed through this place, no shade there now just blurred, green landscape where once you spread your roots.          

That meadow where the seasons changed around your boughs, where the chainsaw's bite, worse than its tinny bark,               

destroyed an oak of England's pleasant land and left no trace upon the empty ground.