Available in:
No items found.
Its bark is scarred— gold lichen clings like hair,
Strange epiphytes and fungi sprout and creep;
The pink-blushed petals scattered round my chair
Tell all who care, this veteran’s roots go deep.
Why, such a cedar (ba-ma-ta they called it),
Would once have built a ship, so long it’s stood—
A whaler, likely. Shipwrights logged and hauled it
Across the seas, so precious was its wood.
The leaves are leather discs; they scud and scrape
Along a shingled roof at night like claws.
Its gnarled old boughs are battered out of shape
From hurricane and blast. Yet still it soars.
For centuries this tree has foiled all powers—
And like old poets— still can conjure flowers.
Growing through the roof of my games room on the Caribbean island of Mustique, its roots far beneath the concrete foundations of the house, a white cedar tree (Tabebuia heterophylla) emerges to tower above our sundeck. Gaunt, massive and ancient, it is a great nuisance to our house staff. The blushed-pink and yellow flowers stain flagstones when trodden on. Its detritus blocks guttes and drainsr. Being deciduous, its leathery leaves have frightened many a guest as they scrape across roofs at night. It has almost no scent and, except for tree-lovers, is not perhaps not a thing of beauty, although to me it is; not just for its welcome shade or the many epiphytes and weird fungi that adorn its branches, but because it speaks of the history of the West Indies. In the Carib tongue it was called the ‘Ba-ma-ta’. The Caribs used it to build virtually unsinkable boats and canoes with which to colonise the Lesser Antilles. European colonists, in their turn, did much the same. And the flowers really are very beautiful.
