In the street in foul mood sunk

I passed a tree, of character I thought,

Whose sprawled and tortured trunk

Reeked of darkness, tempers taut

/So I paused and asked him thus

What ails thee mighty boscodies

He turned his head, and in a husk-

y voice Intoned his piece

/My days on earth appear cut short

The winter’s here, and no more do I

Appear to fit the standards taught

For street trees, smooth of limb and high

/So you see,  bland is the fate 

Bureaucracies

Have handed down. Proclaimed now at any rate

My rootedness is deemed to cease

/It pains me thus to make my peace 

Sure,  long age liberates the soul

From up and up of callow youth,

But more than that it grates my bole

/No heed to deep patrimony

I’m just a staid  embarrassment

To assuage the street-proud folk that see

Through mycorrhizal pediment

/They found better uses for the space

Curbed in concrete no light no air

To distract  the carapaced

Commuter, left nondescript a square

/Of greeny stuff, in sculpt’ arraying

Tendered and tamed and plaqued

Will more fittingly assuage the sting 

To payIng the privilege of a metered park 

/On come the lights,  the sun soon dips

My shoulders now brushed clean,

So still-sapped limbs can turn to chips

While only saw fly larvae keen.

/But if a fragrant oily spectre

Comes to haunt the city skies

Reflect how a carbon steely sector

Replaced a bosky compromise

/31may 2022