PROSE POETRY​

GEOFF SAWERS

---

A TREE HALF IN FLAMES

​​Mayflies swarm in the morning, sawing the air. The earth is starved, minerals drained, salt flats burnt dry by the waxing sun and this one tree, displaced from a medieval manuscript bound in red and white leather to the margins of the slow-washing river Loddon. So near and still so near; otter scat by the bridge. A brace of barbel sway nose-to-current among the ribbons of green. In bunkers underground pale preppers play a game of battleships. A mother cuckoo feeds her nest of molelets. A drone's eye takes it all in, opens the gate to a field where grass snakes writhe against the charred stubble to slough their radio static. No one can read the clouds' alphabet. On one side you breathe out a lungful of hope, a hot glass bubble and it singes your fingers. Brambles melt, fire lines the air. It has burnt all night. On the other a wren chak-chaks and long white willow leaves still trail fingers in the cool bubbling water. Respected Sir, please forgive that I do not know how to correctly address you. This is my first midday report.

---

---

Geoff Sawers's poetry books include Scissors Cut Rock (Flarestack, 2005) and A Thames Bestiary (with Peter Hay; Two Rivers Press 2008). He lives in Reading (UK) with his disabled son.