Tree Time By Olivia Harrison
How well will my life be measured?
By the gaps between my breaths?
In the stillness before each heartbeat
Or the pounding in my chest?
In the time it takes to blink,
By the silence between my thoughts,
In the prayer it takes to sleep
Or the loves that I have lost?
Will I see another spring of splendour and renewal?
How many summers will I have to abandon all the rules?
If I could count the autumns would there be more fallen leaves
Than lonely winter hours by the grand hall fire to grieve?
To the velvet lawn we played upon, while wooed by birds in morning song,
To every tree that sheltered us and mourned the gardener gone,
My constant source of comfort, my oldest tallest friends,
Forgive me the cold axe for which I can never make amends.
I moved at human pace, it took me far too long
To understand your rhythm, your timing I got wrong.
The years you stood so gracefully patient as you climbed
To the sunlight and the heavens, to the tips that marked our lives.
Sure to be survived by the oaks, the beech, the bay.
So many gone before me, do you think they know the day
That I’ll be carried down the drive, departing on my own,
Bricks and mortar standing, my form reduced to bones.
No sliding on the frozen lake
Or bursts of hail in May
In the shelter of your raincoat
The mossy bed where we once lay.
A last boat ride through the sapphire cave,
A folly where Edwandians played,
Immersed in subterranean hues,
The underworld in Krishna blue.
Penance, promises we humbly offered,
More so every time we faltered,
Terrestrial beings, bound to fall,
Celestial spirits, in spite of it all.
A final stop at the gloomy glen and the pit for solstice fires,
Where we marvelled at eclipses and awaited meteor showers;
Midsummer night like druids, in our circle made of stones,
In the presence of our shaman, we symbolically atoned.
A rarefied safe haven and refuge from worldliness
In spite of outer opulence, an inner grace expressed.
A lesson in duality, the material divine,
We indulged in all the obvious, found where to draw the line.
All nature is a temple, formal, wild or bare
I’m at the feet of all creation, for the time that I am here,
Deciding what to plant, to pleasure not myself,
Perhaps I’ll be remembered for the beauty that I felt.
No footsteps taken backwards, just the hill that I’ll descend,
Townsfolk will tell stories and mourn our era’s end,
And say we laboured just for love, in this vale of Chiltern chalk
Where Botanica is exalted and nurtures those who walk
These paths of contemplation, eroded but endowed
With a history of seekers sworn to different vows,
Friars, nuns, agnostics, atheists and swamis,
Buddhist monks and healers, seers, psychics, yogis,
Scoundrels, angels, sweethearts, the ignorant, the sage,
Introverted, famous, recluse or on the stage,
Everyone who enters, faithless or devout,
May leave behind a burden of uncertainty or doubt.
And as I take my leave, I know I’ll join that ether
Of all the previous gardeners and loyal staff of keepers
Who lived and toiled within these walls to make this garden fair,
Their wisdom and humility bequeathed to the final heir.
Lastly but not least, how to thank the absent man
Who saved the home of the sleeping friar from a sad and derelict plan.
The enlightened heart who sang to us, simple words in ways profound
The beautiful incarnation now scattered on this ground.
