Linda Rose Parkes - Freedom Tree Poem - St. Helier, Jersery, The Channel Islands
Posted by: 
dtrebilc
N 49° 11.038 W 002° 07.057
30U E 564301 N 5448280
This statute, the Freedom Tree, in the shape of an oak tree was unveiled on 9 May 2005, the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of the Channel Islands. As part of the commemoration Linda Rose Parkes was commissioned to write a poem.
Waymark Code: WMM52D
Location: Jersey
Date Posted: 07/22/2014
Views: 7
The island of Jersey is a self-governing parliamentary democracy under a constitutional monarchy, with its own financial, legal and judicial systems, and the power of self-determination. It is part of the ancient Duchy of Normandy, and is ruled by the Duke of Normandy—a title held by the reigning Monarch of the United Kingdom, though unrelated to those duties as king or queen of the UK.
Jersey has an international identity separate from that of the UK but the United Kingdom is constitutionally responsible for the defence of Jersey.
link During the Second World War Germany feared that the UK would use the island as a base to invade Europe and so it occupied the island to prevent this.
At the end of the war the German army surrendered and UK troops liberated the island.
The statue
The 18-foot-high 3 1/2-ton bronze Freedom Tree forms the centrepiece of a public area called La Pieche de L'Av'nin - Place of the Future - overlooking the Elizabeth Marina.
It was installed when the area was being redeveloped for public use and two years later the new Radisson Blu Hotel opened in front of the sculpture.
The tree has 12 acorns which represent the 12 parishes of the island. The tree was designed by Richard Perry and he he collaborated with Linda Rose Parkes a Jersey born poet. When deciding a theme for the poem she said that she thought about the
Liberation monument that had been erected on the 50th Anniversary of the liberation and felt that it was now time to look forward to the future.
The Poem
The poem is engraved on the stone steps of the platform that the tree stands on.
In the winding
Near-deserted
Lanes at dusk
how we will comfort
the Great Fretted Moths
searching
in their luminal silks
for the echo of branches
if we drive out every place
where the Tree
bends its voice
into the cotils
every gap in the walls
or stone latch
where leaves
scatter
into our stymied thoughts
their green cadences
of rustling
air
when we sleep
the open
vowels
of landscape still draw
us back
to the windswept oak
the fissured bole
of language.