St Peter’s church Yew

This marvellous yew
Majestically
Stands upon a mound
At the junction of Castle street
And the High street
On a chalky ground

It may have been
Planted,
so I gather
Around the death of one
John Moore who died in 1673
When said and done

Yews grew well in churchyards
Which is often why
They were planted close to the actual church
Where the dead might lie
Yews magical profusion
Their toxicity
Heartwood red
And sapwood white
Obligatory

their gaseous interjection
As sanctification seemed
To where folk might be laid to rest
Ideality redeemed
With a girth of twelve feet six this day
Their branches would have been
Ideal for the perfect bow
Fashioned from the evergreen

Beautiful of foliage
With berries of blood red
Symbolically in Celtic times
Of indeed the dead
Shakespeare spoke of the needles
Of “slips of yew
silvered in the moons eclipse”
Yew shoots buried with corpses
Longevity
and regeneration
As boughs bend so they sprout anew
Rejuvenate recreate life itself
So true.