Poems in lock-down, 'the tramp-tramp of mercenary feet...'

In my last post I wrote about my trees, with my eye sharpened through lock-down. Another lock-down preoccupation has been making my way through hundreds of the notebooks which are the roots of all my writing 

And I found this poem – also called Trees – in the October 2002 notebook.

The poems  are similar, but  as you will notice, different. This one alludes, I now see, to the Roman occupation of the North. I recall now that I was also, at the time, writing my novel The Pathfinder which is set in post Roman Britain.

Here you are: 

Trees

Green light drips onto sooty bark.

The white sun forges pathways

onto petals of yellow aconite

spotlighting chunky bluebells

awakened from their ancient bulbs.

Raw branches push outwards and up

escaping the broad  trunk -

a descendent of the ancient woodland

rooted here predating the existence of

 the whole  town, the main street. 

That straight road still echoes with

the tramp-tramp of mercenary feet

pacing the land, holding it in thrall

for an emperor lounging now

 in glimmering Mediterranean light.

Now this child walks through the trees

trailing her hand on the roughened bark. 

She puts her face to the sky and savours

the pearls of rain that drop from her

round row into  her closed eye.