Blues in a Green Country

by Robert Nisbet

He was her first love, a forester.
He planted spruce along the high Preseli hills.
She’d sometimes dream with him
of majesties of green on mountain ridges.

After their parting, she did well enough.
She married, raised young, played bridge,
consorted even, more latterly,
with ladies who lunch.
                                     They’d not have thought
that once, teaching English to teenagers,
she would flinch from William Blake:
Tyger, tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night.

Sometimes now, driving over the Preselis,
she’ll wince with wonderment,
seeing those forests, their green
and their grandeur, matured now
and confident upon the sky-line.