TREE SHELTERS
Eight thousand trees, planted five years ago.
Slender whips then encased in protective tree shelters,
and now moving into adolescence … needing to be free,
to show off their unfurling leaves on this early April morning.
Alder, aspen, wild cherry, oak and rowan,
aligned in neat rows.
Planted with hope, nurtured and measured with care.
And today we come to walk up and down the rows,
carefully prizing away hundreds of tree guards that are no longer needed
- picking up ones that have already fallen to the ground,
pulling our bags across the uneven grass-reed-weed-nettle clumped terrain.
Pause a moment – Notice the bark of a slender alder,
the first pale blossoms of the cherries, the mauve cuckoo flowers underfoot.
Listen to the silence … nothing more than birdsong.
Stretch your tired back and gaze on the hills beyond Glandwr.
And then we come together - chatting, laughing, supporting -
tipping out our bags and nesting the tree shelters together–
threes, fours and fives. Stack them neatly in grab bags.
Ferry them to base and later send all this pale green plastic off to be recycled,
to become … one day,
hundreds of cylindrical shelters for new sapling trees,
planted with hope, nurtured with care.
© S. J. Wright 12/04/2025
