These are dark days for the lovers of Lancaster Green. During the past week or so the Council’s contractors have been busy tearing the ground up with heavy machinery,  preparing the site for the construction works that will start in the new year.

They have been making lots of noise of course, driving us all mad, those of us unlucky enough to live close-by. They have also been busy murdering our trees. I’m sure I can hear their anguished screams sometimes. I certainly hear them in my dreams.

I searched for and found this poem which speaks more eloquently than I ever could.

“I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree
A tree whose hungry mouth is pressed
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast
A tree that looks at God all day
And lifts her leafy arms to pray
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair
Upon whose bosom snow has lain
Who intimately lives with rain
Poems are made by fools like me
But only God can make a tree”

Joyce Kilmer. 1886–1918

(illustration courtesy of kbwallpapers.blogspot.co.uk)