Number 2

The old tree dwelling on its elephantine foot longs to take steps out onto the grass. 

Number 1

I have taken the title for this new column from Some Trees, a volume of poems by John Ashbery from 1956.

In this photograph, an old oak tree stands listless under the sky like a vessel and yet, as a time-worn cast-iron bell, it holds the memory of the sounds of all the birds and creatures it had ever encountered.