In The Silver Birch at The Botanics Maggie Mackay honours her parents through a memorial tree rooted in renewal. Beneath catkins and bluebells life gathers; bark sheds like tears and a woodpeckers' forage turns grief into a quiet celebration of enduring love.
Our memorial tree stands in a grove of six
leans back on its black rugged base
deep-rooted in the soil a celebration.
Male and female catkins keep company
as husband and wife father and mother
souls intertwined in spring renewal.
Grasses mosses wood anemone
a clump of bluebell gather beneath its shelter
draw blue through light-green leaf canopy.
A woodpecker forages for grubs in a branch.
White bark is paper tissue curl it sheds like tears.
Diamond fissures grow henna dark-deep.