Dark clouds scurrying across the sad sky,
Rushing together, to be darker still.
Bonded in blackness, to start a big storm.
A message of doom! Then, the rain drops fell.

Pulling off the road, I stopped the car,
Staring in horror at the place you should be,
Refusing to believe you were not there.
My beautiful Cup and Saucer Tree – gone.

Not troubled by cascades of cold lashing rain,
I stood and looked at your mutilated stump
and then, in the field, the dark circle of ash-
All that was left of your funeral pyre.

What demented axeman had cut you down?
How, if not by a madman, could this be done?
Not for fuel to warm a family,
For there were fallen trees, and timber in plenty.

In despair, I stood in the storm –
Tears, raindrops. Raindrops, tears.
No matter which fell from nose to chin,
My guardian, my castle, my tower now at rest.

Why wasn’t I there to guard and defend you?
To offer you succour, as you always offered me?
I was far away away in a continental war.
I should have known, I should have felt your distress.

They say you had some terrible disease.
Amputation the cure, the tree doctor said,
Not specifying which.Do trees contact cancer?
Whatever it was, I will not accept it!

For most of my life, you were alive,
You were real – now only to me!
You were, you are still in my mind,
And will remain there always until I die.