BEYOND TREE RINGS How could this trees biography ever be written? Had sight reached beyond boundaries, it might have watched the Hebrew's flight from slavery long before David's psalms were sung. Closer to where its roots were struck in Wales, it saw the earliest shepherds come with weavers and harpists, their eyes bewildered by the first conjuring tricks of spring. Now its looks on another world of slaves which may have measured space but failed to lengthen hours by inch- our hill a stone we've briefly settled on. And neither it nor any dying star can say where the next birth-seed will be sown. Even the sun may forget how to make shadows, leaving only silence beyond tree rings. Yet why should we stop singing? We too are freed by music that breaks chains and, for the split second of a millennium, join in the dance to blossom, root and stone. BY EDWARD STOREY

The above poem was kindly provided by Edward Storey to add to the record. For a tree which is very valued within the parish of Discoed.

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