Tree-line, rewindings

Leaning bent upon his stick,
he gazed upon his tree, stark, – struck
by lightning one day, now gnarled,
its history in his mind unfurled …

Its years of green, his adult shade,
youth spent climbing, swings he’d made
– a piece of rotten rope still now
hangs on a knot on shrivelled bough.

… the nests in spring, the busy feedings
each year of numerous fluffy fledglings;
boxes in his shed constructed
to shelter tits, – from harm protected; …
a woodpecker nesting in the bole;
the site a nuthatch later stole –
used mud to shrink the entrance hole;

… summer evenings’ leisurely listening:
the blackbirds’ rich, melodious trilling,
and nightingale’s exuberance thrilling;
shared happy times with grandson, watching
those thrushes, warblers, sparrows, bullfinch –
who came some tasty buds to pinch;

… the caterpillars, galls galore,
birds’ creepy-crawly feeding store,
thick growths of lichen, mossy clumps,
fungi brackets, trunk burl humps,
the squirrel’s play, and scruffy drey;

… the changing seasons, slow decay
as underneath the litter lay,
spring’s swelling buds – like waterfall
the strings of dangling tassels fall
from fuzzy flowers for pollen showers.

… a tiny acorn’s burial spot
three hundred years before today:
there, undisturbed, grew strong tap root
– no squirrel’s meal, no squashed decay
from rambler’s roams – emerging shoot …

… and even now, a buzzard perches,
as Grandad John his memory searches …