The Cup & Saucer Tree (Epilogue)

Dark clouds scurrying across the sad sky,

Rushing together, to be darker still.

Bonded in blackness, to start a big storm.

A message of doom! Then, the rain drops fell.

Pulling off the road, I stopped the car,

Staring in horror at the place you should be,

Refusing to believe you were not there.

My beautiful Cup and Saucer Tree – gone.

Not troubled by cascades of cold lashing rain,

I stood and looked at your mutilated stump

and then, in the field, the dark circle of ash-

All that was left of your funeral pyre.

What demented axeman had cut you down?

How, if not by a madman, could this be done?

Not for fuel to warm a family,

For there were fallen trees, and timber in plenty.

In despair, I stood in the storm –

Tears, raindrops. Raindrops, tears.

No matter which fell from nose to chin,

My guardian, my castle, my tower now at rest.

Why wasn’t I there to guard and defend you?

To offer you succour, as you always offered me?

I was far away away in a continental war.

I should have known, I should have felt your distress.

They say you had some terrible disease.

Amputation the cure, the tree doctor said,

Not specifying which.Do trees contact cancer?

Whatever it was, I will not accept it!

For most of my life, you were alive,

You were real – now only to me!

You were, you are still in my mind,

And will remain there always until I die.