The Grand Yew – All Saints’ Church

One of the oldest trees in the village standing guard at All Saints

(edited 22nd March 2021)

I visit this graveyard often,

the gravid whispers of the dead verdant,

rising from beneath the long unkempt grass

to commune with the wind touched trees,

leaves trembling under the unfleshed force.

I listen resting on the plaqued bench –

“For J.J. Berryman, Husband

To Margaret, Father to John and Craig” –

shaded by the dark canvas of the Grand Yew,

for seven centuries a guardian

standing at the Gate of the Dead,

guiding all souls through, as all are worthy,

shaped from the first innocent breast.

Its trunk – ravaged, twisted and split,

by the entropic cuts of time and men

still, through some wondrous mechanism,

continues to feed its green canopy –

now stands fenced to protect it from

the casual vandalism

of school children passing to and from

The Howard, host to the opposite of solitude,

but they too, in time, will fall beneath its spell

and tread the path mapped by its prescient sprigs.