Beneath The Tree
(by Nicola Hulme)

Beneath the tree I climbed as a child
daisies grew, bright and wild,
a sunlit meadow where flowers bloomed.

Buttercups trampled, earth torn asunder
a church erected in hail and thunder,
childhood dreams destroyed too soon.

My heart wept to see so clear
in chains a boy of tender years,
where now there stands a chapel room.

Rome planted bodies of guilt-ridden men
beneath the weight of sacrament,
amongst darkened sods of wrathful gloom.

Mark Sheeky’s Watercolour: The Garden of Love (available for purchase)