WITH all the publicity lately to try and save the beech trees at Fulford I think the poem below, The Tree by Alfred Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918), is very apt.

I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is pressed against the earth's sweet flowing breast.

A tree that may in summer wear a nest of robins in her hair.

Upon whose bosom snow has lain.

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me.

But only God can make a tree.

T Chilton,

Danum Drive,

Fulford, York.

Updated: 11:25 Wednesday, October 06, 2004