The Green Man

This Green Man has been placed upon the wall of our house - I bought it from a girl who had her hair arranged in braids - she told me that the Green Man would bring us luck - we had gone to the Swanage Folk Festival in early September - I had just started a new job as Deputy Head at Oakmead Technology College in Bournemouth - I thought that I might need the luck -

But I have always loved walking in woods - the sight and smell of the trees, the feel of their bark under my finger tips, the silences, the sense of mystery half hidden - all of this takes me far from the world of care -

As a boy, I used to scramble up a tree outside our house in Sedgeley Grove - I can still remember the shape of this tree - there was a notch in its trunk, a sort of seat you could sit in - I would hide within its branches, my bare legs bruised by its bark - I would look up at the sky - the pinched town I was growing up in was soon forgotten -

I walked yesterday in woods near East Stoke - I stood on a trackway between silent trees - most of the trees were dark firs - all was still - there were drifts of fallen leaves - the sun was low in the sky - there was the sound of one rook cawing -

In my dreams, however, I walk in tangled woods - there, I see the Green Man - I can feel loops of ivy stems coiling around my arms and legs - I can see, close up, the new growth, the leaves and buds, come tumbling from out of his mouth - I try to hide from his mindless gaze - I am excited and afraid in my dream - I know that I am in the presence of something that is primeval, of an age beyond count -

When I wake up, I go outside, and look again, more carefully, at our Green Man, hanging from the wall - I can see clusters of fruit, hanging from the stems which are pouring out of his mouth - little birds are feeding from the fruit - our old apple tree is a few yards away, with its intricate web of branches, its apples like plump jewels -