English Elms

Seven Sisters in Tottenham, long gone, except for their names, were English Elms.
Others stood at the edge of farms, twinned with the shape of clouds, like green rhymes;
or cupped the beads of rain in their leaf palms; or glowered, grim giants, warning of storms.
Ours is a world without them.........to whom the artists came, time upon time, scumbling, paint on their fingers and thumbs; and the woodcutters, who knew the elm was a coffin's deadly aim; and boys, with ball, bat, stumps for a game; and nursing ewes and lambs,calm under English elms.......
great, masterpiece trees who were overwhelmed.