For Sara Philpott
Under the oak's heavy shadow
you grew hugging seldom sun.
How did your roots ever cling
to that slip-sliding land?
The hedge, the dunnocks' hideaway
has been lopped down and even
the stream-rats have abandoned
homes, exposed to owls' talons.
Too thin for any snow to settle,
you change from light to dark
in an hour, barometer branches
pointing to the changing clouds.
Next to the oak's dense strength
you seem a sickly one, yet
the old tree's roots are showing
like bulging blue veins.
You, in mud and runneling rain,
a wiry antenna of the Waun ;
shine of moisture and turned soil
young on your bark still.
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