Major

Mighty poets have judged ‘not to be’

A relief, but for mighty old me,

Judging Major at peace

Offers no sweet release:

RIP’s no re-leaf for a tree!

 

Mike Mesterton-Gibbons is a Professor Emeritus at Florida State University who has returned to live in his native England. His poems have appeared in Current Conservation, the Ekphrastic Review, Light, Lighten Up Online, the New Verse News, Oddball Magazine, Rat’s Ass Review, WestWard Quarterly and other journals. In 2025 he won the Children’s Unpublished category of the Eyelands Book Awards with Flora’s Flock and Other Stories to Read Aloud. The poem was prompted by the Guardian story “Most famous tree in the world’: Sherwood Forest’s 1,000-year-old Major oak dies.”