Monday 13 January 2020

Commoners


Common trees for common people. No fruit, but plenty of fresh air. Kings hid in them. Poachers risked their lives under them.

The London Plane. Plane trees for plain people.

I miss the great Elms. I miss the wide Elm boards of the English country houses.

I miss the Gypsy charcoal-burners and their Autumnal Willow harvests.

Yeomen with hearts of Oak shot wooden arrows from Yew bows.

Uncommon people.

25 comments:

  1. This is a poem. And it's beautiful.

    Did your English Elm trees fall victim to the disease that claimed ours?

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  2. Think of all gone extinct in our lifetime. The American chestnut! Birch, firs going extinct. Blame us all.

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    1. There are a lot of things going extinct in Australia right now.

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  3. Both Ash and Horse Chestnut now looking sick as well as Elm and Larch.
    We need trees in many ways

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  4. Wavy Elm weatherboarding will be greatly missed; straight cut Pine boards don't have the same allure.

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    1. I would rather have Pine boards and see a great Elm in the middle of an ancient field.

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  5. King Charles 11 hid in an English Oak in Boscabel, he also took refuge in White Ladies Priory in Brewood where I went to school. Some nuggets of information that flash by as suddenly as we remember, Thank you that inspired writing.

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    1. So you went to school with Charles the Second?

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  6. There was a great Elm tree in the lane where I grew up. If ever I go back there I still miss the blank space that in once occupied.

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    1. For quite a few years the dead ones were left standing starkly. I even miss those.

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  7. Why isn't the squirrel busy at the oak tree collecting acorns? She called in sick and went to the beech.

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  8. An out-of-context question: How does one unfollow Amy Saia?

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    1. Go to your reading list on dashboard and take her out I guess.

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    2. I don't think that works, but I'll have another go.

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    3. She's not even on my bleedin' reading list! She's a pain in the arse, as is The Real Illuminati, who is also not on my reading list.

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    4. You could take her off your blog list underneath here. I don't know if that helps but if you don't want her then no point in having her on the blog list.

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  9. I used to live close to the Boscobel oak - associated with Charles II - rather a disappointing tree when I last saw it thirty years ago just before I moved up here. Before that I lived close to Edwinstowe and the Major Oak which was huge but in a sorry state. Expect it is still standing but it was propped up all the way round in those days.

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    Replies
    1. Interesting, Weave. I think there is (along with everything else) some conjecture about the oak in question, and even about the story itself. I like to believe in everything, as some around here accuse me of in any case.

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