The Sycamore Gap tree, on Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland, was cut down in an act of vandalism last week.

Chris McDonnell reflects: Sycamore Gap

                                                                     Standing in a sloping gap

                                                                     in a dry stone wall

                                                                     a sycamore tree spread

                                                                     its open hand shadow

                                                                     across the starlit Northern sky.

A gathering point for years,

the Sycamore Gap marked meetings

and endless dreams, shelter

from rain, shade in summer sun.

Now felled by chain saw

                                                                            in a late September night

                                                                            spotlit by stars leaving

                                                                            a hollow echo of space in a

                                                                            shattered ancient wall

                                                                 A single tear-drop stain of loss.

Editor’s note: Another young man, Kieran Chapman, planted a young sycamore next to the fallen tree ‘to restore hope’. However, according to the BBC: “The man who planted a sapling near the felled Sycamore Gap tree said he was ‘devastated’ National Trust bosses had removed it...But National Trust officials said they had to remove it because of the site’s Unesco World Heritage status.”