Warwick Tree Memory Project
The Great Elm
Three hundred years
And hard to the core
But not now—
Not anymore.
Three hundred years
Of passing time
Of snows and rains
And compatible sun-shine.
How many children played
Beneath those boughs?
How many lovers whispered
Secret vows.
How many hours
Of Song birds singing there?
And lovely village flowers
Blooming everywhere.
How many storms
Threatening to destroy
And heaps of snow
Shoveled by some young boy.
In our village
On Cherry Street
That old elm stood
Well rooted deep.
Three hundred years
Until a disease
Common to the elm
And not other trees.
That great elm
An old arboreal friend
After three hundred years
Has come to an end.
The lives that we live
Can never be
As simple and complete
As the great elm tree . . .
--Francine de Ferc-Tyler
The Yellow Tree
A little boy came to me
And said, O sing of the yellow tree.
I sang, The Yellow Tree is Autumn’s Song.
Sung by the wind all day long.
A trunk so lean with branches bare
And all the leaves of his golden hair
On the ground
On the ground.
Yellow Tree will leaf anew
In the spring, a light green leafy hue
And some tiny bird will build a nest,
Chosen tree from all the rest.
Leaves will hold tight until the fall
Then come dancing down one and all
On the ground
On the ground.
The boy loves the Yellow Tree
Much more, I think, than he loves me.
The Yellow Tree with branches bare,
Just right for a boy climbing there
And the golden dreams of his play
Among the tree yellowed leaves all day.
On the ground
Crunchy sound.
--Francine de Ferc-Tyler
The Tree
Massive limbs are leafless and bare,
Knarred and knotted in the wintry air.
The April winds sing an astonished song—
Giant tree you stand so long!
Northeast winds lash and blast all the leaves
Of those about that are neighboring trees—
Yet the old oak stands resolute and proud
Stark and antlered against the sky’s dark shroud.
Defiant, giving not to nature’s will
Or yielding tenuous roots in the hill—
Lofty as a tall ship once sailing the seas,
The ancient oak stands among the living trees.
--Francine de Ferc-Tyler