Ash Avenue

This evocative photo of an avenue of ash trees near Ramsden was kindly provided by Matthew Lee who also wrote the poem below.

Dead Wood

“Hullo old chum,” you used to say

Though now it's five and twenty years

Since you went away

Am I now walking down your path?

Along this old woodland avenue

Each one core-dead as July's hearth

Leaves bounce and jostle above riven trunks

Of some twenty elder ashes

Life flowing up their wrinkled flanks

But hollowed out, empty, split apart

Only air sighing

Where each used to have a heart