On Day 689 of the daily poems our poet Simon Haines writes “I found this on the Woodland Trust website. I used the text with just a few words altered or added from later in the article” – and here is his Found Poem of mistletoe:
Viscum album
Waxy, white berries
in twos or threes,
with seeds inside
coated in sticky stuff
which sticks to the beaks
of mistle thrush or fieldfare.
They wipe the stuff
off on a branch,
or eat it and excrete it
on trees – lime or poplar –
in their droppings.
The gluey pulp hardens
and fastens the seeds in place.
The new plant’s roots
penetrate the bark
to take water and nutrients
from the tree.
Simon Haines
from https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/