Among the Trees

   for Jon Bowen

 

We’ve just sat down to eat a salad/French bread

with bits and pieces, vaguely rustic lunch when

I make some bland remark about how lovely

it is to be surrounded by so many trees.

 

‘Trees are the answer,’ Jon remarks, and I

agree, but have no time to register my

agreement as he comes out with a measured,

‘it doesn’t matter what the question is,’

before I have a chance to counter with

another bland and uninsightful statement,

like, ‘Absolutely,’ or, ‘Quite so,’ or even, ‘Yes.’

 

Instead of making my unnecessary verbal noises,

I get out of my chair and head towards

the bedroom, where I write his gem of wisdom

inside my notebook, knowing first-

class inspiration for a poem when I see it.

 

And in the middle of the writing of the poem,

a tiny grasshopper lands on the table,

next to my hand. I notice that a leg

of his his caught up in a fragment of

a spider’s web. I let him grasp my pencil.

I place him on a piece of wood, remove

the little filament of sticky thread,

and write. And when I look again, he’s gone.

 

Like Jon, who’d gone back to his vineyards after

our post-lunch conversation, which, as always,

revolved around guitars and music; laughter,

as always, punctuating all we’d said.

The best advice I could have given to my younger self

would have been a simple, Choose your friends wisely,

Fergus.’ At nearly forty years of distance,

I almost hear him say, ‘I did.’