A dirge for Lochart
for Jen Whyle

Again, as years ago,
I heard the forest in the valley
chant – a haunting, mystic sound,
unmistakeable.
At first I thought it was humans,
so choral was the chant –
but humans can’t traverse
the thick, virgin forest there.

Then I realised the ‘Standing People’*
were offering a gift.
They chanted four or five times,
at irregular intervals.
Everything else was still,
and mist lay quietly,
veiling the valley.

And it occurs to me,
in the writing of this,
that the trees brought up through their roots,
nourished by the Tyume River,
a dirge for Lochart,
a fine man, of the good earth,
whose sudden death shook
not only the two-leggeds.

          – The Edge, 1st February 2024 (two days after Lochart died)

 - Silke Heiss


*The name given to trees by the indigenous inhabitants of America.