THE ABSENCE OF A TREE

“This solitary Tree! a living thing Produced too slowly ever to decay; Of form and aspect too magnificent To be destroyed.” - William Wordsworth

The cold blooded murder of the iconic Sycamore Gap tree along the UNESCO protected Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland is in its own way a quieter, yet similarly symbolic event to 9/11. Of course, there were no human casualties in this act of rural terrorism which marks its most significant divergence from that catastrophic event in New York in the year 2001 but the injury on the country's national psyche may not yet be fully realised as this tree was one of the most famous in the eyes of the world and represented the quintessence of Englishness with its perfect framing in its landscape and solitary gravitas.

One wonders what type of evil would consciously commit an act such as this? It is impossible not to see it as symbolic of something beyond just a mere mindless and random act of vandalism, though what? Could it be the increasing emergence of the new dark age that is spreading across Europe and the West and which is helping bring down the curtain on a dream of England that feels like it is slowly being snuffed out. It certainly seems that way to me.

I also find it hard not to think of those scenes in Peter Jackson's 'The Lord Of The Rings' where Saruman commands his army of orcs to cut down trees to help fuel the fires of Orthanc. The Sycamore Gap tree will not be re-used for anyone's battle though its destruction feels like an act of war.

And what will be left in its absence except melancholy?

Perhaps, then, the only response to it being destroyed is the power of silence in which an even bigger tree begins to grow.

The tree of memory.

And yet, I can see as in the poem 'Place' by W.S. Merwin how planting an actual physical tree may be the only solution where one hopes the spirit of Aslan, Tolkien and King Arthur with his Grail Knights all protect its growth like invisible guardians.

Besides, rebirth is as inevitable as the spring and for some that's a curse (the perpetrator of this crime) and for others (The Sycamore Gap) it's a blessing.

The eternal paradox.

On the last day of the world
I would want to plant a tree

what for
not for the fruit

the tree that bears the fruit
is not the one that was planted

I want the tree that stands
in the earth for the first time

with the sun already
going down

and the water
touching its roots

in the earth full of the dead
and the clouds passing

one by one
over its leaves