Birchwood Poplars (felled 2019)

On my journey to work in the mornings, I pass a long line of tall poplar trees. Especially on clear early mornings in the winter time, when I am leaving just before or around sunrise, it is wonderful to see the sun rising beyond them.

So I was really sad a week or so ago to see half of them felled, I assume because the land behind is to be developed for another industrial box, to be accessed where the trees grew. They are now mostly piles of chippings, with a few remaining felled trees still to be chipped.

Almost a Gerard Manley Hopkins moment, although not the “sweet especial rural scene” he described in “Binsey Poplars (felled 1879)”