Long listed for the 2023 Urban Tree festival writing competition

Em Gray reads “Trees are poems Sung by the Wind”

Alder

The wood of this tree doesn’t rot when under water; on the contrary, it gets tougher and
stronger.

I take the path we always took, over the wooden planks making something like a bridge, my legs guide me, knowing the gaps. The same gorgeous silence, only now unshared.

Ash

Ash leaves fall when they are still green.

They say that the best you can do is to hold their hand. It’s funny how at the end we go back
to such a simple thing – holding someone’s hand. I remember walking into the park after the
doctor told me and hugging the ash tree we used to study together, and howling, and wanting
to tear all its leaves.

Aspen

The rippling leaves of this tree give it its name: quaking aspen, as they tremble and flutter in the slightest breeze.

Can you feel all this movement? you said.

I look at the leaves – an orchestra of sound and movement. I hear you whisper through the
branches. Everything shifts, everything changes. And we can’t stop that. We can only go with
it.

Birch

Their sound is gentle and soothing and can be heard even in winter when the branches are
bare.

Trees are poems sung by the wind, you once said.
I listen.