Two of my early poems based on, relatively, close observation were "A Bowl of Chrysanthemums" (written in October 1979 and posted here on 12 November 2011), and "Ashford Stream" (written in September 1979 and posted here on 18 April 2012). Both were in free verse which I long ago abandoned. Two of my more recent poems about a "closely looked at" tree are "The Magnolia Tree" (written in December 2014 and posted here on 2 November 2019), and "Magnolia Tree: November" (written in December 2015 and posted here on 15 September 2020).
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i.
In mid-December, All Souls done, and dark
St Lucy’s Day so soon to break,
The wind-bent hawthorn trees, lurched on their hill,
Were scourged by the wind’s rain-shot freak.
Below, the sea smashed white-haired grey-gut rollers
On shrieking shingle, and the gulls,
Flung in the brute-drum wind and swamping pour,
Fled under clouds as black as hells.
Groaning, those trees rocked in the chilling blast,
Twisted prone to the mud-sunk grass;
Fallen of leaf, arthritic-branched, their bark
Was scabbed, tumoured with rain-black moss.
Bullied, they stretched shook fingers, grasping east,
But pounded by the gales’ dark fists,
Like sick-faced crones, palsied at the grave’s edge,
They slumped, mind-gone and numb, death’s guests.
So sink all in the western wind.
ii.
Come March, Annunciation springs the sap
Though grey-mist dawn humps down on frost;
The wind-bent hawthorn trees fruited with dew
Stiffly awake in the air’s must.
Tide out, the sea is lumpen, brownly-dense:
The gulls, gut-urged to dance and nest,
With dirge howls wring the sands in hungered flight,
Food and soon hatchlings their sole lust.
Like youths greedy to do, but crabbed by wind,
Thralled by the land’s puce heath and granite,
The trees haggle to growth: tight whorls of leaves
Like bursting acne rash their branches;
Those whorls cup pustules, eager in their swelling –
Broken, they’ll flare to cloudburst flower.
The lichen, daubed like salve on the trees’ bark,
Crustily soothes their silent clamour.
So swell all in the western wind.
iii.
And June, blazed by sun and the Sacred Heart,
The fields loud-hummed with urgency,
The wind-bent hawthorn trees, freighted with leaf,
Flexed branches in the blue-paned sky.
The full sea, light-flashed, huffing wave-slumped sighs,
Bore gulls at rest, though hot to squabble
For wave-beached sops, then crop-full fleeting back
To females at nest, eggs at coddle.
Corralled like crop-head convicts, berry beads
In work gangs mobbed the trees’ crank limbs,
Half-blushed and sourly-green like Cox’s Pippins;
Young growth like salad leaves glanced gleams,
Though cramped by older leafage, calloused, torn,
But tautly bending to the sun’s
Hot swipe. Polished and stealthy to commit
A wound, thorns grin, glinting like tines.
So gleam all in the western wind.
iv.
September, mild and balmed by Holy Cross,
The sky washed mauve, the hills clipped lean,
The wind-bent hawthorn trees, crisped by the sun,
Thin out in wastage, their haws blood-brown.
The sea, dusty and still, flops kelp in swathes,
And the year’s fledge scamper the sands,
Jostling and wolfing mud worms: moulting, glum,
The adult gulls thieve crusts and rinds.
Death-browned at edge, the trees’ frail leafage shrinks
Like flesh parting from ragged bones,
Those mildewed bark-flaked fingers, lumped with fruits,
Soon to be frenzied by winds, rains.
Darkly-glowing, lusciously-globed, a’wait
For seizure by the starveling birds,
The crab-red berries, dandled by the breeze,
Lift and fall like a froth of curds.
So wait all in the western wind.
v.
All months, that primal urge: go on, go on:
Harsh matter’s will-less drive to be!
The wind-bent hawthorn trees, machines of cells,
Take and discard on the hill’s knee.
At foot, the sea retreats, returns, its fecund
Uncaution sculpting habitat
Which gulls, chancers of the scoured beach, make do
Within, though prowled by death, for meat.
All has its ages – new to cankered old;
Time’s footprint limps to the cliff’s lip;
Like Pincher Martin gripped on his soused rock
Life sinks to claws, then dies to shape.
What’s left but context, mind-known, greater than
Its parts, teased out by thought, by prayer?
What grows dies; in death meaning is its task,
An ache that consequence be here.
So pray all in the western wind.
====================
© December 2018 – October 2019
----------------
i.
In mid-December, All Souls done, and dark
St Lucy’s Day so soon to break,
The wind-bent hawthorn trees, lurched on their hill,
Were scourged by the wind’s rain-shot freak.
Below, the sea smashed white-haired grey-gut rollers
On shrieking shingle, and the gulls,
Flung in the brute-drum wind and swamping pour,
Fled under clouds as black as hells.
Groaning, those trees rocked in the chilling blast,
Twisted prone to the mud-sunk grass;
Fallen of leaf, arthritic-branched, their bark
Was scabbed, tumoured with rain-black moss.
Bullied, they stretched shook fingers, grasping east,
But pounded by the gales’ dark fists,
Like sick-faced crones, palsied at the grave’s edge,
They slumped, mind-gone and numb, death’s guests.
So sink all in the western wind.
ii.
Come March, Annunciation springs the sap
Though grey-mist dawn humps down on frost;
The wind-bent hawthorn trees fruited with dew
Stiffly awake in the air’s must.
Tide out, the sea is lumpen, brownly-dense:
The gulls, gut-urged to dance and nest,
With dirge howls wring the sands in hungered flight,
Food and soon hatchlings their sole lust.
Like youths greedy to do, but crabbed by wind,
Thralled by the land’s puce heath and granite,
The trees haggle to growth: tight whorls of leaves
Like bursting acne rash their branches;
Those whorls cup pustules, eager in their swelling –
Broken, they’ll flare to cloudburst flower.
The lichen, daubed like salve on the trees’ bark,
Crustily soothes their silent clamour.
So swell all in the western wind.
iii.
And June, blazed by sun and the Sacred Heart,
The fields loud-hummed with urgency,
The wind-bent hawthorn trees, freighted with leaf,
Flexed branches in the blue-paned sky.
The full sea, light-flashed, huffing wave-slumped sighs,
Bore gulls at rest, though hot to squabble
For wave-beached sops, then crop-full fleeting back
To females at nest, eggs at coddle.
Corralled like crop-head convicts, berry beads
In work gangs mobbed the trees’ crank limbs,
Half-blushed and sourly-green like Cox’s Pippins;
Young growth like salad leaves glanced gleams,
Though cramped by older leafage, calloused, torn,
But tautly bending to the sun’s
Hot swipe. Polished and stealthy to commit
A wound, thorns grin, glinting like tines.
So gleam all in the western wind.
iv.
September, mild and balmed by Holy Cross,
The sky washed mauve, the hills clipped lean,
The wind-bent hawthorn trees, crisped by the sun,
Thin out in wastage, their haws blood-brown.
The sea, dusty and still, flops kelp in swathes,
And the year’s fledge scamper the sands,
Jostling and wolfing mud worms: moulting, glum,
The adult gulls thieve crusts and rinds.
Death-browned at edge, the trees’ frail leafage shrinks
Like flesh parting from ragged bones,
Those mildewed bark-flaked fingers, lumped with fruits,
Soon to be frenzied by winds, rains.
Darkly-glowing, lusciously-globed, a’wait
For seizure by the starveling birds,
The crab-red berries, dandled by the breeze,
Lift and fall like a froth of curds.
So wait all in the western wind.
v.
All months, that primal urge: go on, go on:
Harsh matter’s will-less drive to be!
The wind-bent hawthorn trees, machines of cells,
Take and discard on the hill’s knee.
At foot, the sea retreats, returns, its fecund
Uncaution sculpting habitat
Which gulls, chancers of the scoured beach, make do
Within, though prowled by death, for meat.
All has its ages – new to cankered old;
Time’s footprint limps to the cliff’s lip;
Like Pincher Martin gripped on his soused rock
Life sinks to claws, then dies to shape.
What’s left but context, mind-known, greater than
Its parts, teased out by thought, by prayer?
What grows dies; in death meaning is its task,
An ache that consequence be here.
So pray all in the western wind.
====================
© December 2018 – October 2019
