With xylem flow and flight through phloem
tree colonnades of forest trunks
feed spreading arched roof canopies.
So vigour growing down and up
for city of cork cambium
continues unseen in its tasks,
transmitting, porting as required,
a tree of life if ever was.
Those bent on clearance, baring place,
with chain saw grip now doubled up,
fell columns for wealth capital.
About their heads filled capitols –
those fallen populated skies,
cathedral vaultings far from earth,
though Greenman’s holy working space
where breathing, breeding, globe renewed.
Thus daily overbearing dose
of thoughtless greed and lust for more,
sees goal of economic growth
destroying health, while exposing
the inner workings, sin filled souls.
In holding ‘I’, sin’s central glyph,
community of all denied,
creation – humankind, failed peak.
From seas to summits, in between,
this spinning ball in its ellipse
ignores all prophets’ warnings calls.
The Greenman taps from roots its wood,
rings out its years to celebrate.
But we fail to escape our berth;
base case where the roots follow us,
for soiled and selfish dominate.
Stephen Kingsnorth (Cambridge M.A., English & Religious Studies), retired to Wales, UK, from ministry in the Methodist Church due to Parkinson’s Disease, has had pieces curated and published by on-line poetry sites, printed journals and anthologies, including Poetry Potion. He has, like so many, been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. His blog is at https://poetrykingsnorth.wordpress.com