Song of the Big Belly Oak

Slipping from beneath the sheets of antiquity,
Wiltshire swaddled – steeped in ancient might,
always has been master of its own destiny.

Great Oak...afflictions
you've suffered many,
bravely you never perish,
silently as seasons change,
you dwell upon this land,

for though you are a speck
beneath this green forest,
a belly full of memories,
ripped from the backbone,

in youthful roots of adolescence,
lies the future – while to the elder,
a bewildering soul clutches to a past,
remnants of another time and place,

remembering centuries of decay,
a corset of bark eaten away by time,
few thousand decades of war – famine
and disease could not extinguish the
whispering shadows of your soul,

a true king of your domain,
I wonder if your imperial majestic,
could communicate, what truths of
history...recollected? A silent dialogue
between the two of us, heard in the leaves,

as branches entwine in blustery gales,
limbs remain exposed, gestures filter
out their message to me...releasing a
voyage of discovery, the song of the
Big Belly Oak.