A Fagus Profile

or Greener and Golder

I. Tasmanian Tanglefoot Tonic

Nothofagus gunnii, a
Shrewdly deciduous beech;
The tanglefoot,
And twisty-arm,
With weathered bark
And wild charm;
The only yellow leaf
Native to this piece
Of land down under,
Greener and golder.

She is wise enough to know
That you shouldn't always show
The writhing powers of below,
Which rise up through serpent roots
And bleed out through verdent shoots
With such reptillian allure
That it bends your blessed limbs ...
Northofagus knows a cure:

Let those cooler winds prevail;
Let your blood run yellow-gold,
And with a true repentant wail,
Let the autumn gust take hold;
And your blood will not just drip,
But fly and flash, and flood and flip!

This Nothofagus gunnii, this
Loving deciduous beech;
The only yellow leaf
Native to this piece
Of land down under,
Greener and golder.

Photos were taken on a hike in the Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park, Tasmania (2022).

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Side by side they lay; and down swept Gwaihir, and down came Landroval and Meneldor the swift; and in a dream, not knowing what fate had befallen them, the wanderers were lifted up and borne far away out of the darkness and the fire.

When Sam awoke, he found that he was lying on some soft bed, but over him gently swayed wide beechen boughs, and through their young leaves sunlight glimmered, green and gold.

- J R R Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings — The Field of Cormallen)

“Trust the oak,” said she; “trust the oak, and the Elm, and the great Beech […] shun the Ash and the Alder […]”

[…]

The first thing I remember is the sound of a voice above me, full and low, and strangely reminding me of the sound of a gentle wind amidst the leaves of a great tree. It murmured over and over again: “I may love him, I may love him, for he is a man, and I am only a beech-tree.”

- George MacDonald (Phantastes — Chapter III and Chapter IV)

Running again to the wood, I had not to search long ere I found some small boughs fit for my purpose—mostly of beech, their dry yellow leaves yet clinging to them. With these I had soon laid the floor of a bridge-bed over the torrent.

- George MacDonald (Lilith — Chapter XVIII)

I saw the great black top of the beech swaying about against the sky in an upper wind, and heard the murmur as of many dim half-articulate voices filling the solitude around Diamond's nest.

- George MacDonald (At the Back of the North Wind — Chapter XXXV)

The tree which Digory had noticed first was now a full-grown beech whose branches swayed gently above his head. […]

- C S Lewis (The Magician’s Nephew)

She looked at the beech under which she was standing. Ah! — she would be the best of all. She would be a gracious goddess, smooth and stately, the lady of the wood.

- C S Lewis (Prince Caspian)

She was like a woman but so tall that her head was on a level with the Centaur’s: yet she was like a tree too. It is hard to explain if you have never seen a Dryad but quite unmistakable once you have — something different in the colour, the voice, and the hair. King Tirion and the two Beasts knew at once that she was the nymph of a beech-tree.

- C S Lewis (The Last Battle)

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II. Fairy Land Beechwood Bridge Weave

'Trust the oak,' grandmother said,
'The oak, the elm, the beech ...'
So my nest was settled
In the first that I reached.

Then looking down, I saw
The hobbits waking in the shade
Of her mottled slender beams;
In the sunlight's dappled streams.
'We may love them, we may love them,'
We so gently, pleading, prayed.
'We may love them well
With this nest that we made.'

(She remembers well
The year that mountain grew;
She remembers well
The fires it has spewed.)

'She is the lady of the wood,'
My grandmother once said,
And now old Father Time
Has come to cut her down ...
I hope he makes a wardrobe,
Or some such heirloom piece --
A four-post bed or reading chair;
Perhaps a door, a bridge,
So she may love and heal
In her new and homely world.

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