Distant Trees At Kilve

We drove down to Kilve, between Bridgwater and Minehead, for a walk along the coastal path this morning. It’s a beautiful and relatively quiet stretch of the coast and has the added attraction of a tea garden near the car park that does excellent savoury scones.

Trees aren’t really the main subject of the blip (though there are some in the distance) but I’ve tagged it as an excuse to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Seamus Heaney’s death by posting this poem from his work, Sweeney Astray


Sweeney Astray - Seamus Heaney
The bushy leafy oak tree
is highest in the wood,
the forking shoots of hazel
hide sweet hazel-nuts.

The alder is my darling,
all thornless in the gap,
some milk of human kindness
coursing in its sap.

The blackthorn is a jaggy creel
stippled with dark sloes;
green watercress in thatch on wells
where the drinking blackbird goes.

Sweetest of the leafy stalks,
the vetches strew the pathway;
the oyster-grass is my delight
and the wild strawberry.

Low set-clumps of apple trees
drum down fruit when shaken;
scarlet berries clot like blood
on mountain rowan.

Briars curl in sideways,
arch a stickle back,
draw blood and curl up innocent
to sneak the next attack.

The yew tree in each churchyard
wraps night in its dark hood.
Ivy is a shadowy
genius of the wood.

Holly rears its windbreak,
a door in winter’s face;
life-blood on a spear-shaft
darkens the grain of ash.

Birch tree, smooth and blessed,
delicious to the breeze,
high twigs plait and crown it
the queen of trees.

The aspen pales
and whispers, hesitates:
a thousand frightened scuts
race in its leaves.

But what disturbs me most
in the leafy wood
is the to and fro and to and fro
of an oak rod.