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| Digital poster depicting King Offa's Oak |
by Brett Rutherford
In Great Windsor Park,
King Offa's Oak
was said to shade
for rest and watering
a man and horse,
the latter unnamed,
the former a Norman
king called William.
A Flemish knight
named Ruderfyrde
brought news.
England was won.
Oaks big enough
in hollow trunk
to conceal a band
of outlaws.
The Major Oak
in Sherwood Forest
was one of these,
concealing, live,
one Robin Hood,
or dead, in larder,
the King's deer.
In Devon, nine dined
inside the Meavy Oak.
The self-same tree
at Wetherby
lets seventy men
and one distraught
old squirrel cram
into its dark insides.
Below the arms
of a Shelton oak,
a battle raged
between Prince Hal
and Hotspur.
One, Owen
Glendower, safe
in its leafy bower,
witnessed it all.
Oaks stout and fit
to serve as a gibbet.
Look there -- the Abbot
of Woburn dangled
at Henry VIII's order.
Oaks old and wise,
abundant with acorns:
what have they not seen,
what secrets not heard?
They lean, they bend,
they groan with cold and frost,
and yet they will not die.
