Survival

Gillian Bickley - UK

Thank you trees for being there, for staying

when many of the friends you knew─

birds and butterflies ─have gone;

for flourishing, even; growing old

where concrete buildings

are constantly knocked down.

How brave you are to survive

in a place where the air is foul

and the noise unnatural;

you who should normally expect

to stabilise your roots

in humid humming forests

alive with the smells of

animal and vegetable life

(not the smells of mineral death, as here).

It is good to look down a street

and, amazed, to see you there

solid and green and cool, uncompromised

by the advertising posters on your boles;

a promise

that, since there was a past

there may quite possibly be a future too.

1970-1997

From Gillian Bickley, For the Record and other Poems of Hong Kong, Proverse Hong Kong, 2003, distributed in Hong Kong and worldwide by: The Chinese University Press, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong; Tel: (INT+852) 2609-6508; Fax: (INT+852) 2603-7355; cup@cuhk.edu.hk; web: cuhk.edu.hk/cupress; distributed in the United Kingdom and worldwide except Hong Kong by: Christine Penney, 28 West Street, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, CV37 6DN, UK; email: christine.penney@virgin.net