THIS morning, amidst the depressing news cycle of war and depravity, there came, by way of relief, a story of an entirely different tenor: a story about trees. It was an item about the Woodland Trust, the guardian of all things green and growing, and how it was asking us to ponder and vote for the “tree of the year”. Just a piece of fun, of course; for trees, unlike celebrities, are not just “of the year”: they are of decades, of centuries, even, in some cases, of millennia.

Indeed, the opening sentence on the Woodland Trust’s Tree of the Year 2024 web page reads: “A tree may be a village’s oldest inhabitant, a founding figure in a region’s identity or a natural monument integral to a nation’s story.” And then comes a shortlist of 12 trees that are already living legends. From Shropshire to Lincolnshire, from Jedburgh to Fermanagh, they have stood through the centuries, while the dynasties and the political parties have come and gone.

My favourite, and the first on the list, is the Queen Elizabeth Oak in West Sussex. It is said that Elizabeth I stood beneath this tree, bow and arrow in hand, on a hunting excursion in 1591, by which time the oak was already more than 500 years old. Perhaps it was salutary even for so great a queen to know how comparatively brief our own lives are.

As it happens, this news item came while I was writing an arboreal episode of my own. I have got to a point in my Arthurian ballads where Merlin leads the young Arthur, who still has no idea that he will be king, to an old oak grove, and, by magic and the talisman of an oak leaf, allows him to share for a while in the inner life of the trees:

Now take this oak leaf in your hand
And lean against the tree
Then feel your own roots delving deep
Where hidden springs and waters seep
And let your branching thoughts still keep
A place for mystery

So Arthur held the oak leaf close
And leant against the tree
And soon he felt a change begin
As though he grew grey bark for skin
A strong new life sprung deep within
A whole new way to be

He shared the long life of the oak
So strong through change and chance
Older by far and deeper than
The busy little lives of men
He breathed in sunlight, drank in rain,
A living link in that great chain
Of life itself warmed by the sun
Where all advance and all return
In one long joyous dance

The invitation to gaze on the 12 old oaks, resplendent on the Woodland Trust’s website, was just the inspiration that I needed to continue with my poem.