Bowing to their guests
These bristled old pines;
Their scruffy long beards
And gnarled old muscles,
Racked by a twitchless cramp
Ossified by dendro-arthritis,
They drop their heads
To the wind
As if in servitude,
Or, with great honour,
They greet the sou’wester.

From a wind-blown seed,
Whipped from the clutches of
Some long-lost ancestor,
Nuzzled down in the sand
And, through inhospitable grains,
Sank that first insistent tap-root.
Through storm and flooding tide,
Through blistering Sun across
Countless summers
It fought for life; between
Warring sides –
One the precious fresh,
The other desparate salinity.

Dappled, in their needle
Shade we walk,
Children squeal and play,
Cicada click their
Machine-gun anthem;
The pines, stand guard,
Gnurling and twisting
To the contours
Of the years
Washing over them,
As we walk through
Unnoticed.