A hundred withered autumnal tears; <br />a hundred pining springs, <br />without a breath for the hopes and fears <br />that come to you and me. <br />It must have stood for a hundred years, <br />the stoic chestnut tree, <br /> <br />a hundred summer’s drunken cheers <br />inside the wintered rings. <br />After it was felled and free <br />from wooden reason, <br />by men with stoic bills to pay <br />and relatives with more <br />(all was released in half a day <br />spent with an axe and saw) <br /> <br />it went four ways, the chestnut tree - <br />one for every season. <br />The second was to Mickey Tighe, <br />who made us lakeside benches, <br />my father lay in all his grace <br />within the walls defined. <br /> <br />The first was to the carver’s place <br />where coffins are designed; <br />they sit there still, before the sky, <br />and tideless water clenches. <br />The fourth my brother planned to turn <br />into a simple clock; <br />but I and Genna split a load <br />and the rayeburn could be fed. <br /> <br />The third lot sat beside the road <br />‘til winter reared its head, <br />maybe from lost chimes we’ll learn <br />that Charon does not dock. <br />More and more, these broken wintry days, <br />people say I look just like my father. <br />Some nights I scorn the rayeburn’s warmth and flee; <br />the moon above ignores what time delays, <br />and, sitting by the lake, I wish I’d rather <br />know what felled that stoic chestnut tree.<br /><br />Sean Godley<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-chestnut-tree/
