Stand

SWT Southwick Reserve

Ye shall hear of wars and the rumour of wars. Mathew 24:6

As if they felt it coming, heard
the rumours circulate the understory,
a crackle of distant gunfire

Planted like a prophecy in this perfect
ring decades before, the stand faces
outward to an approaching menace

Wagons lagered, a platoon of Ash
drawn-up back-to-back to make
a fight of it, steadfast to the end

Heads high, the signs are there
already in the canopy ─ the dieback
has begun and they shall fall

together, comrades-in-arms, the last
stand of a company of the tree that
upheld, once, heaven and the world

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