Myrtle poem

Apollo and Daphne
by Tiepolo (detail)

Trees that take quasi-human form and humans who morph into trees – mythology and literature have enough of these to form a fair-sized forest, from the dryads (wood nymphs) of classical mythology to Tolkien’s ents.

Of Trebah’s many trees, the myrtles seem to me most human. And in one version of the Greek myth of Myrrha, it is a myrtle into which the fugitive Myrrha is transformed (other versions have it as a myrrh tree). This poem takes that myth as its starting point.

Myrtle

Your lean trunk twisted contrapposto,

limbs flung forward and back to display

their sculpted muscle, inviting caress –

bark soft as skin but cool to the touch,

on the cusp of mortality. Did you stumble

through this undergrowth as Myrrha fleeing

her father’s sword, dark hair snagging on briars,

clothes shredded by thorns? Feel as in a dream

your stiffening legs, toes rooting in earth,

his shamed breath panting behind you as sap

spread like anaesthetic through your veins?

But when he blundered blindly past you,

on into the wood, and you knew that time

had stopped, was it dismay you felt or rapture?

                                                                        Tom Scott

Blooming Poetry workshop

On Saturday, the poet Moira Andrew and I ran a workshop for children in the Vinery at Trebah.

It was a lovely group, and we had a lot of fun. Moira has worked with children a great deal - and indeed written several brilliant books about how to inspire them to write.

Within a couple of minutes she had their imaginations sparking, and over the morning they all created beautiful tree poems (and drawings) as well as riddle poems about small objects they'd found on our forays out into the garden.

Being a lively bunch, the children were full of questions and observations about things they'd noticed. But for surprisingly long stretches they were amazingly quiet as they focused intensely on their writing. And the results were stunning - you can see a couple of the pieces they created below.

There's more about Moira and her books - for grown-ups as well as for children - at her website. I'm looking forward to doing more workshops with her at Trebah next year.

Tree poem by Clemmy

Tree poem by Iris

A puzzle poem

Here's a puzzle of a poem. Can you guess what the tree is?

a

trophy tree 

named like a parlour game or sideshow

 ladies and gents, step up

and

 behold the fiercest known specimen in captivity!

see its armature of spiked steel leaves

its

 crocodilian hide, thick enough to withstand the volcanic fires

 that scorch its mountain home, its cone-grenades primed

to

detonate every three years – yes, you may touch

but have a care, madam, have a care!

its

seeds so scattered form the staple diet of the Pehuenche tribe

of the high Andes, for whom it is a totem

its

fossil forebears flourished for millennia in primordial forests

whose other scaly denizens it long outlived

and

for

all

we

know

 it

will

see

us

out

too

                                      Tom Scott

An autumnal treat

In the form of John Clare's 'Autumn', read by Richard Burton.



Was ever a voice so mellowly fruitful?

Tree fern poem

A long break from blogging - moving house has taken up a lot of time and energy over the last couple of months.

Our new home has a bigger garden than our old one, with quite a few exotic sub-tropical plants. Exotic to my untrained eye, that is - though among the few that I did recognise straight away were a couple of tree ferns of the same sort that grow to truly majestic proportions at Trebah.

I was curious to find out more about these, not least how to look after them properly. And in researching them, I discovered that the first tree ferns in Cornwall are said to have arrived in ships - possibly convict ships - returning from Australia in the 19th century, which used them as ballast for the return voyage. In Australia, they're sometimes called 'old man ferns' (in the same way as a particularly large kangaroo is known as an 'old man kangaroo').

Tree ferns have much of their root system contained in their trunks, which are cleverly designed to snag vegetation dropping from the forest canopy and turn this into nutrients. And amazingly, when they were jettisoned around harboursides in Cornwall these plants began to put out new fronds (or 'flushes', as they are known).

All this got me thinking, and the result was a poem:

Tree Fern

Old man fern knows a trick or two.

He’s got deep pockets, sly sleeves.

He’ll pick up on the flop, catch

greenbacks the forest highrollers drop.

Nothing’s lost on him, no old growth

wasted but bound by root-web into

his porous trunk, his own rich ground.

He can bluff with the best of them, play

dead when need be. Chopped and slung

in the hold of a convict hulk, ballast

from Van Diemen’s Land, he rocked

in the reeking dark for fifteen weeks. 

Dumped by a Cornish quay, soaked

in a strange, cool rain, he felt

a pale sun’s blush, then spread

his winning hand, a royal flush.

                                                  Tom Scott

Grandpa’s treasure chest

A lovely poem by Moira Andrew, from Pat Borthwick's recent workshop at Trebah...

A poem about chopping onions

Written during Pat Borthwick's wonderful 'Food for Thought' workshop at Trebah today. Many thanks to Pat, and to Chris Considine and Lyn Moir, who also read so beautifully afterwards...

Princess of Light-scattering Bamboo

Chinese ink painting, artist unknown
Metropolitan Museum NY

One of my favourite spots at Trebah is the "Bamboozle", a maze of paths through a grove of bamboo alongside the stream, about half way down the valley.

Bamboo is such a magical and mysterious plant, in so many ways....

30 May at Trebah: Our Friends from the North

This event promises to be a real feast of poetry. It features two poets based in the north, Pat Borthwick and Lyn Moir, and one, Chris Considine, who has just moved to Plymouth after living for many years in Swaledale.

The day starts with...

A simple flower so small and plain

Wood Anemone
(source: Wikimedia Commons)

Walking in the woods below Carwinion (just down the coast from Trebah) a few days ago I came across banks of wood anemones. Their white, star-bell flowers put me in mind of a song by Gillian Welch about another early spring flower, Acony Bell.

Marvellous shades of green

This blog takes its name from one of the greatest of all garden poems - Andrew Marvell's The Garden.

Marvell lived through one of the most turbulent periods of English history - the Civil War and its aftermath. He spent some of this time at Nun Appleton House in Yorkshire as a tutor to the daughter of Thomas Fairfax, commander of the Parliamentarian forces.