Poetry on Lockdown: ‘Listening to the trees’ by Mandy Haggith

Poetry on Lockdown is a blog series in which writers and Library staff reflect upon poems chosen from our website. They’ll write about how the poem is providing comfort and inspiration during the lockdown. Today, our  Administrator Ross Jamieson looks at ‘Listening to the trees’ by Mandy Haggith.

And the birch says
it’s about dancing and colour

and the rowan says
it’s about berries and birds

and the willow says
it’s about shape and shelter

and the hazel says
it’s about love and lichen

and the aspen says
it’s about growth and the wind

but I say it’s about
listening to the trees

***

I live by a busy road – usually. Cars, buses, taxis to-ing and fro-ing on Saturday nights into Sunday mornings. A fairy constant exchange of engine sounds – usually. Lately, it’s been quieter, and I’ve been hearing new things drift across the windowsill. Conversations, unfamiliar bird calls, the protracted clatter of an aluminium can rolling the length of the street and back again. I sit by the window more than I used to.

A small strip of garden surrounds the church across the street, and huddled against the stone wall are a group of trees – three conifers, all different shades of green, and two Japanese maples. In a strong breeze I can hear them, shivering, shushing, and I don’t think I ever have before. Either they have grown more vocal or it’s easier to hear them than it used to be.

There are a lot of other things it’s easier to hear at the moment: statistics, opinions, recipes for Korean iced coffee; people telling you to be productive, people telling you to relax, people telling you to home school your children while baking banana bread and reading Tolstoy. I find it all too easy to think these things are directed at me, even when they contradict one another. I try to remind myself the echo chamber is larger than usual in this moment.

I was conscious when writing this that we have all had a lot said to us and I wondered how to offer something without trying to tell you all something. Mandy Haggith’s poem struck me with the simple resilience of its narrator. The birch says dance, the willow says shelter and the aspen says grow. The narrator listens to them each in turn, but in the end decides for themselves what’s important.