Old tower of bones,
old frosty oak, you,
who twists and turns your way to the sky.
Your knuckles and elbows and knees I descry.
They’re all knobbled,
old frosty oak,
knobbled and knocked,
all covered in moss
then covered in frost.
What will you, bone tower,
what will you say,
who guards and glowers
all gaunt on the way?
‘My bones are the home of the nettle-nook mouse,
the holes in my side are the sparrow’s small house;
the woodpecker bores, yet here I remain,
and will yet live, to burst into leaf,
into leaf and acorn again.’
Ben David Trigg 