Poetry Thursday - Woodland Burial by Pam Ayres

(image from here)

Pam Ayres recited this impromptu on a tv book programme. Listen here - 57 seconds of the poet's unique voice. The poem is shown on her website -

Woodland Burial
Don’t lay me in some gloomy churchyard shaded by a wall
Where the dust of ancient bones has spread a dryness over all,
Lay me in some leafy loam where, sheltered from the cold
Little seeds investigate and tender leaves unfold.
There kindly and affectionately, plant a native tree
To grow resplendent before God and hold some part of me.
The roots will not disturb me as they wend their peaceful way
To build the fine and bountiful, from closure and decay.
To seek their small requirements so that when their work is done
I’ll be tall and standing strongly in the beauty of the sun.

After a short stint in the civil service and then the WRAF, Pam Ayres set out to become an entertainer, appearing on Radio Oxford in 1974 and Opportunity Knocks in 1975 - after that there was no stopping her, and she has sold millions of books, record albums, CDs, DVDs. She appears regularly on radio and tv.

Her memoir of her early years is called "The Necessary Aptitude" - something she apparently lacked in her early clerical jobs.