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The Tree Story for week 12 features a poem my friend Prof Fu Hao . Keep Well , Keep Safe , Keep Happy .

A TREE IN THE PARK

 

Tree in the park, what

are you waiting for?

 

We don’t know when you were transplanted here

but only see you’ve never moved since,

for your feet have already degenerated.

you’re unable to walk as you will.

 

You can no longer remember

your family tree,

that majestical multitude dancing in winds and storms,

but stand alone at a loss

in the very centre of the crowded city.

 

In summer you wear thick clothes

and in winter strip off

and mumble to yourself under the midnight moonlight

like a homeless lunatic beggar

for whom nobody cares,

 

till one day someone who loves someone

leaves with you a heart pierced by an arrow.

The deep cuts will never cicatrize.

Time is a bad healer,

who can only make the wounds gape open

like chapped skin.

 

Some years later, on your old trunk

they might nail a board with these words written:

“Once upon a time a hero pursued his enemy,

who ran around the tree here.

and with his bow shot and missed,

leaving these cuts in the tree.”

 

Tree in the park, what

are you waiting for?

 

 Fu Hao 1991

 

Memory Palace of Trees 2020 is an ecological art practice which invites your participation to tell a story (or give some kind of information) about trees. It is a social enquiry of how to live better with the planet and with people. You are cordially invited to tell me your story of a tree or trees. (email : niamh@niamhcunningham.com) I would love to hear from you . Each week throughout 2020 a story will be posted with either an artwork already made or perhaps your story will inspire me to make a new work!