The Fortingall Yew

The Fortingall Yew

Some twenty two thousand years ago

a bone was notched with a clumsy tock

from a flint glancing across time.

stone struck ticking bone

for some seventeen thousand more years.


And then about three thousand BCE

the yew put down roots when

a settling seed pinned itself to

some holy ground in Perthshire

and called it home

just as the footings for Stonehenge were dug,

here in Fortingall, foundations were grown.


Neolithic tombs built of eschatology gave

a floor show for the sapling yew,

as the graveyard grew.

Our death was its witness.

The sight of burial by a poison bower

soon gave us ways to conjure war

by ritual and artifice.

The yew gave up the long bow

to Thanatos and our vice,

performed by ghosts

in the half life of misty groves.


The yew watched and bore testimony.

And grew.


Until our mercantile ways

saw off large splinters

for sale as souvenirs

and nearly killed it.


It was walled and protected

for its own good, and some say

that the bones that once were

sixty five foot round,

eleven, stretched finger tip to finger tip round,

in the graveyard by the barleycorn,

might be good for another

five thousand years.


Witness of our death.








John Ochiltree 2007-03-05