The Cherry Tree
It was a small cherry tree
Which grew down the bottom of the garden
So far down reaching it was a mighty mission
With plant pots to negotiate and neighbours to distract you
From ones expedition
To the cherry tree at the bottom of the garden
Its splattered seeds pebble dashed
the faded natural stone tiles
black and red flesh and crushed bone like a horror movie
A footpath to an unwholesome discovery
Like a dead body wrapped in roots
And the twisted, organic fragments of a shrub
That lived nearby once in a shattered tub
The garden cat was not innocent
Stooped on the shed’s tin roof amongst the tree’s leaves and branches
ready to commit bloody murder
On the garden sparrows and blackbirds which animated
A variety of sullen stances, in a tree which sometimes swayed like
A timid figure bobbing at a family wedding
Or a cheerleader pompom at a sports gathering
There was no summer sun down there
Where the cherry tree grew in darkness
A shiver hit your spine upon touching its silver trunk
And the sap from its crying wounds spilt buckets
Like gushing trails of terrible secrets
With train track black ants scurrying, only too aware of its dangers
That lurked around every twist and jerk of the crooked bark hearse
Behind the shed temperatures were sub-zero and discarded strips of timber
Lay in rest in still shadow which sometimes splintered off into
Black diamonds of shape shifting flights of fancy from fate
Or predators that lie in wait and the panicked calls of a
Startled sparrow moving on to another dimension
In a sea of feathers and twisted shoots together, and then just a memory
of a tree later extirpated at the roots by a wayfaring stranger in steel capped boots
