for Lyubomir Nikolov, again
But the trees, Lyubomir, remember the trees!
Five or six of them, each a distinct variety
Of apple – yellow or red, russet or buff-green –
With a footbridge over the brook
And a path winding among them through high grass.
One I can still see.
In the mind’s eye, as then through the body’s too,
I feel the gravid pull
Of the fruit bunched red among green, red as the autumn sun,
Bending the boughs.
Well, now they are gone.
Churning up rights of way,
Bulldozers plough the earth for the new block.
New rights, of course, will succeed the old, but for what?
There is always something more important than trees.
What is anger, my friend, but a form of memory?
I will not let go.
To do so, I know (so they tell me), is good for the soul.
I cannot think of that. I prefer the pain of knowing the trees lost
To losing the trees.