Day Twenty Six: 'Wittenham Clumps' by Angi Holden

Wittenham Clumps

Boxing Day, and overfull with sweet roast turkey

sherry trifle, fruited cake, we craved the open sky

and ventured out to Wittenham, its grassy Clumps

still frosted in the afternoon. Hand-held we stumped

up Castle Hill, to find the ancient Poem Tree -

Tubb’s tribute to his landscape: Augustine’s monastery;

remains of Roman villas cradled by the winding Thames;

Cwichelm’s grave; the distant Ridgeway; Mercia’s bounds.

We traced his pen-knifed stanzas, gnarled and worn,

distorted by a century’s growth. Before we turned

for home, we took a photograph, just us, the tree, the sky,

where over-wheeled by rare Red Kites we paused awhile.

Unseen, beneath its bark, a beetled core. A summer storm

has swept it all away; now even words are gone.

Angi Holden