Mar 23, 2023
The poet laureate, Simon Armitage, has written a new poem which pays homage to spring, in celebration of World Poetry Day.
Plum Tree Among the Skyscrapers is the first in a collection of poems inspired by blossom and commissioned by the National Trust.
Its publication marks the beginning of the Trust’s annual blossom campaign, in which the charity will vow to bring blossom back to landscapes across the UK by planting 20m trees by 2030 to help tackle both the climate and nature crises.
Plum Tree Among the Skyscrapers by Simon Armitage
She’s travelled for years
through tangled forests
and formal gardens,
edged along hedgerows,
set up her stall
on tenanted farms
then moved on, restless,
empty handed sometimes,
sometimes with fruit
in her arms.
She’s hopscotched
through graveyards and parks,
settled down in allotments,
clung to a church roof
by a toe.
She’s pitched camp on verges
and hard shoulders,
stumbled on threadbare moors
above the tree-line
and slummed it on wasteland,
but dug in on steep hillsides
and rough ground.
She was Queen of the May
on a roundabout once
in a roundabout way.
She’s piggy-backed
across trading estates, hitched
in a mistle thrush beak,
drifted with thistledown.
She’s thumbed a lift into town.
Now here she is,
in a cracked slab
in a city square
in a square mile
mirrored by glass and steel,
dwarfed by money
and fancy talk.
Hand-me-down brush,
pre-loved broom,
to the paid-by-the-minute
suits and umbrellas
and lunchtime shoppers
she’s a poor Cinderella
rootling about
in a potting compost
of burger boxes
and popped poppers.
In that world,
orchard and orphan
are one and the same.
But she’s here to stay -
plum in the middle -
and today she’s fizzing
with light and colour,
outshining the smug sculptures
and blubbering fountains.
Scented and powdered
she’s staging
a one-tree show
with hi-viz blossoms
and lip-gloss petals;
she’ll season the pavements
and polished stones
with something like snow.