My friend Dai H loved trees
Never more so
Than when perched
High and holy
Way up on leafy limbs
At one with the sky

Any tree would do
His scrawny little body
Scrapped and greened
By branch and trunk
Mocked us ground bound kids
Even as we cheered him on

He died a savage death
Far from those emerald boughs
In a sterile white ward
Cut down by his own cells.
Bet he’s up in the oak now
Smiling.down