As today is Tolkien’s Birthday I thought I’d post this poem which was inspired by my memory of having once seen a grainy photograph of Tolkien leaning back into a tree contentedly and smoking his pipe, – something I quite often do myself. Here is the poem, which I included in my book ‘The Singing Bowl, published by Canterbury Press

As usual you can hear me read the poem by clicking on the title or the ‘play’ button

https://audioboom.com/posts/7131579-patterns-tree-and-leaf.mp3

Patterns (Tree and Leaf)

Tolkien is leaning back into an oak

Old, gnarled, distinct in bole and burr

As, from the burr and bowl of his old pipe,

Packed with tightly patterned shreds of leaf,

The smoke ascends in rings and wreathes of air

To catch the autumn light and meet such leaves

As circle through its wreathes and patter down

In patterns of their own to the rich ground.

He contemplates again the tree of tales;

The roots of language and its rings of growth

‘The tongue and tale and teller all coeval’

And he becomes a pattern making patterns,

A tale telling tales and turning leaves,

From the print of thumb and finger on his pipe

To the print and press and pattern of his books

And all their prints and imprints in our minds

Out to this grainy patterned photograph

Of ‘Tolkien, leaning back into an oak’.

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