Where the primary school and the houses end
are hawthorn hedges and occasional oaks
on either side of the lane. From the school gates
the leafless trees are an arching, tangled
fretwork – closer each twig is proud, discrete,
vital, sentient. A sudden gust of wind,
or a lightning blow, in one oak tree’s
early growth snapped off a branch, and left an arm
with a claw like a beak. Shut behind the gates
the gradground children have no chance at all
to imagine the stub of a branch a bird,
ECO-WARRIOR
THE BROKEN BRANCH
A CHORUS OF ZITHERS
HOME TIME
IN PRAISE OF THE WORLD WIDE WEB