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You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jan/25/country-diary-poplar-laid-low-by-age-and-wind-sandy-bedfordshire
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| Country diary: a mighty poplar laid low by age and the wind's revenge | |
| (about 1 month later) | |
| When the last storm whipped through our valley it brought down the tallest tree on the river. An old Lombardy poplar, a spire without a church, it belonged to an age when planting poplars was popular. They were the leylandii of their day, for they shot up as fast as rockets and looked like them too. They were often grown in rows as windbreaks, though nobody much thought about old age and the wind’s revenge. | When the last storm whipped through our valley it brought down the tallest tree on the river. An old Lombardy poplar, a spire without a church, it belonged to an age when planting poplars was popular. They were the leylandii of their day, for they shot up as fast as rockets and looked like them too. They were often grown in rows as windbreaks, though nobody much thought about old age and the wind’s revenge. |
| For a day or so after, my eyes clawed at the air, looking for the absent shape of a tower that had been a crow’s nest for a magpie, a labyrinth for tits, a cricked neck. I saw only a wooded ridge, some houses, and sky – so much sky that it snuffed out the memory. For a day or so only, passersby stopped to inspect the toppled giant, as they might view the corpse of a beached whale. | For a day or so after, my eyes clawed at the air, looking for the absent shape of a tower that had been a crow’s nest for a magpie, a labyrinth for tits, a cricked neck. I saw only a wooded ridge, some houses, and sky – so much sky that it snuffed out the memory. For a day or so only, passersby stopped to inspect the toppled giant, as they might view the corpse of a beached whale. |
| I paced its prostrate length – at 30 metres it was bigger than a blue whale. The impact of its fall had snapped off branches all the way along – arms, fingers and knuckles. I touched the tip of a topmost twig, probably the first human to do so in 75 years or more, and it came away. It had put on a spurt of 30cm growth in its final summer, its tight grey buds poised to open into another year. A moment later, it protruded from my coat pocket, destined to bud or not in a mantelpiece vase. | I paced its prostrate length – at 30 metres it was bigger than a blue whale. The impact of its fall had snapped off branches all the way along – arms, fingers and knuckles. I touched the tip of a topmost twig, probably the first human to do so in 75 years or more, and it came away. It had put on a spurt of 30cm growth in its final summer, its tight grey buds poised to open into another year. A moment later, it protruded from my coat pocket, destined to bud or not in a mantelpiece vase. |
| At the tree’s base, an autopsy of its last seconds was written in splits, snaps, rips and a broken heart. Close to, the anchors of its roots had severed with yellowing tears that wept still, or lifted to leave a half-ring crater. Peeled back like the lid of a tin, its trunk revealed itself as hollow, the heartwood eaten out. An ivy-coated stem of trunk-like proportions had sheared off to the river, the overhang already amputated by a chainsaw. | At the tree’s base, an autopsy of its last seconds was written in splits, snaps, rips and a broken heart. Close to, the anchors of its roots had severed with yellowing tears that wept still, or lifted to leave a half-ring crater. Peeled back like the lid of a tin, its trunk revealed itself as hollow, the heartwood eaten out. An ivy-coated stem of trunk-like proportions had sheared off to the river, the overhang already amputated by a chainsaw. |
| A blackbird played on the parallel bars, hopping from horizontal branch to horizontal branch, a surfeit of perches. Was the tree now dead, or would spring shoots begin new life at a different angle? | A blackbird played on the parallel bars, hopping from horizontal branch to horizontal branch, a surfeit of perches. Was the tree now dead, or would spring shoots begin new life at a different angle? |
| Trees and forests | Trees and forests |
| Country diary | Country diary |
| Winter | Winter |
| Rural affairs | Rural affairs |
| features | features |
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