Reflections in the Mirror Looking Back – No 8

 Oak Tree of Childhood Memory

I attended a poetry workshop for Poet’s Week in Perth Western Australia.  One of the exercises we did was to write a poem with each line beginning with a verb.

I ended up doing a short poem on the oak tree that was in the field next to my Aunties place in Northern Ireland.  We would go there on holiday once a year.  One year I can remember being old enough to sit in the tree.  It is a memory that has stayed with me and more importantly, it is the sensory and sensual memory of that tree that remains in me.

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Sit, caught in your embrace

Listen to your rustling whisperings

See childhood horizons stretched

            to fields edge

Feel pools of sun dappled warmth

            Lick my skin

Shelter in the safety of your rough limbs

Watch patchy blue sky

            From behind your curtain of green

Touch the texture of your hardened strength