A welcome guest

My friend and Picaresque colleague Judith van Dijkhuizen was the winner of the poetry section of the Gloucestershire Writers Network competition at the Cheltenham Literature Festival last year. She's blessed with musical as well as poetic talent and has entertained us at New Bohemians in the past; I'm delighted that she has agreed to guest on my blog this month. 

CITY TREES

As you hurry past the high-rise flats,

and the dum-dum-dum thuds from car windows –

remember the forest

where you heard the snow melt.

And as you pass the city trees,

spaced evenly in square-cut holes,

remember that their roots are spreading, spreading,

beneath the tarmac,

a hidden forest floor.

Judith van Dijkhuizen

As a child in post-war London, I was always on the lookout for nature. I loved the tough wild plants that grew under hedges, all leaves and wiry stems with a few tiny, star-like flowers. I spent hours poring over books on birds and flowers, and went searching for them – successfully – on overgrown bomb-sites.

The idea for this poem came to me when I was walking along the London Road in Cheltenham, past the traffic and rectangular flowerbeds. I looked at the giant London plane trees and thought about the scene in two distinct ways. Trees planted and controlled in the town – or the town a guest of nature, held and tolerated by the trees.